Gaughran Trails Smyth; Absentee Votes Yet To Be Counted

LONG ISLAND, NY — Republican challenger Edmund Smyth is currently leading Democrat incumbent James Gaughran in the race for New York state's 5th Senate District according to New York Board of Elections data, though absentee ballots are still being counted.

Smyth leads Gaughran with 69,015 votes to 55,132 — or more than 10 percentage points — with 294 of 295 districts across both counties having reported Election Day results, according to the New York BOE. However, the Gaughran campaign is optimistic that absentee ballots will swing the election in the incumbent's favor.

"There are nearly 30,000 absentee votes, the majority of which appear to be from Democrats," Marissa Espinoza, a spokesperson for Gaughran's campaign, told Patch. "It is vital that every vote be counted. I’m confident that this full count will favor Senator Gaughran."

Smyth, in a Facebook post, said his campaign is "extremely confident" with his lead.

"First of all THANK YOU all for your tremendous support over the last several months!," Smyth wrote. "After all of our hard work, I am happy to say that after Early Voting and yesterday’s Election Day voting, we are up nearly 14,000 votes! While there are still many thousands of absentee ballots that need to be opened and counted over the coming days, we are extremely confident that with the cushion we have from in person voting, we will ultimately be successful."

The votes tallied Tuesday included all early votes and ballots cast on Election Day but did not include absentee ballots received so far, said Peter McGreevy, Southold Republican Committee Chair.

McGreevy said, according to the Suffolk BOE, as of Monday, absentee ballots received in Suffolk were comprised of 50,698 Democratic ballots, 27,051 Republican, 1,706 Conservative, 4,287 Independence, and 27,471 Blank.

In Nassau County, 144,183 absentee ballots were returned by the close of business on Election Day, according to the BOE. Of those, 73,442 were Democrat, 33,328 Republican and 31,982 listed as blank.

The Suffolk BOE expects to start counting absentee ballots next Tuesday — after it has had the opportunity to remove the absentee ballots of those voters who also cast a ballot on a machine and compare the signatures, as well as have bipartisan teams compare the signatures on the oath envelopes to the voter’s signatures on file.

The state's 5th Senate District covers the north shore of Long Island, including Glen Cove, Syosset, Jericho, Oyster Bay, Plainview, Huntington, Northport, Melville, Dix Hills and part of Commack.