Weber Leads Reichlin-Melnick In Election-Night Vote Tally

In the 38th state Senate District, Republican William Weber leads Democrat Elijah Reichlin-Melnick in a race to take over the seat left by Democratic Senator David Carlucci, who ran unsucessfully for Congress.

Still left to be counted are all mailed-in absentee ballots. Under New York law, mailed-in ballots may be received up to seven days after the election — this year, Nov. 10 — as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

Also, a New York voter may vote in person even after casting an absentee ballot. That is another reason why absentee ballots cannot be counted until after all in-person votes are cast.

The oddly-drawn district includes all of Rockland County and, two miles across the Hudson River, the town of Ossining in Westchester County.

According to the New York Board of Elections, as of 10:04 a.m. Wednesday, Weber had 47 percent of the vote and Reichlin-Melnick had 44 percent.

Weber was doing better in the Rockland part of the district, where there are 172,369 active registered voters, according to the NY BOE. With 97,009 votes counted, Weber held 49 percent of the Rockland vote to Reichlin-Melnick's 42 percent. Eight percent of the Rockland ballots were blank in the race.

In the Westchester sliver of the district, where there are 23,018 active registered voters and 12,732 votes were tallied, Reichlin-Melnick had 62 percent of the votes tallied to Weber's 30 percent.

Weber, 51, is a Certified Public Accountant. He has been the CFO of a privately held company since 2000. His wife, Lisa Weber, is the acting superintendent of the Suffern Central School District.

"The truth came out today in the votes," Weber said on election night in a speech posted on Facebook. "We're overwhelmingly optimistic that when all the absentee ballots are counted we will be victorious."

On election night, Reichlin-Melnick said there were nearly 40,000 outstanding absentee ballots, with Democratic ballots outnumbering Republican ballots by more than 3-to-1. "Now we have to ensure that the remaining votes are counted and the will of the voters of the 38th District is respected," he said. "We will work to make sure every vote is counted and will eagerly await the results."

The count continues; check back with Patch for updates.