Today...41 days after the Nov. 8 elections, incumbent Democratic New York State Senator John Mannion (50th District) finally won reelection. By 10 votes.
That came after a post-election vote count that had more twists and turns than a roller coaster.
Mannion was up by thousands of votes election night, enabling me, a volunteer who worked on his phone bank, to go to bed and get some sleep. Upon waking, his Republican opponent was ahead by hundreds of votes.
As the votes kept being counted, the spread got narrower and narrower until all the initial ballot counting was done. Mannion had reclaimed the lead, by 51 votes.
Because of the closeness of the race a recount was required by state law. A couple of weeks later, following the recount, Mannion was still ahead, by 57 votes.
But, due to legal actions requiring a judge’s involvement, there were about 180 disputed ballots, which still needed to be adjudicated.
A judge did so for about half of the disputed ballots, leaving Mannion with a very slim 17 vote lead.
The rest of the votes were finally resolved just today, leaving Mannion with a mere 10 vote lead and the judge ordering certification of the results. Within an hour his opponent conceded.
To quote one of my favorite bands of all time….”What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
Having won by just 10 votes makes this volunteer wonder if those hundreds of phone calls made on Senator Mannion’s behalf may have, somehow, helped provide the margin of victory.
The lesson is clear to me: Do not underestimate the value of your volunteer work. It could well mean the difference between winning or not. And while that was not really news to me, up until today it felt more theoretical than real. It really hits home now.