Absentee Ballot Count In NY Senate District 40 Delayed

There are about 35,500 mail-in ballots still to be counted in the contentious race for New York's 40th District Senate seat, and legal maneuvering has slowed the ability of the Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester boards of election to count them.

Republican Rob Astorino challenged first-term Senator Pete Harckham in the district, which includes much of northern Westchester, part of Putnam and part of Dutchess County. He had an 8,000 vote lead over incumbent Democrat Pete Harckham after Election Day, but the ballots still to be counted account for 22 percent of the total vote.

This is not business as usual, Harckham campaign spokesman Tom Staudter told Patch.

He said in addition to filing lawsuits, which happens every election, the GOP has flooded local boards of election with "tens of thousands of FOI requests" for every absentee ballot and documentation, to wit applications and cover envelopes, etc.

"They're hoping to disqualify as many voters as possible," he said. "They're engaging in a version of voter suppression."

Astorino's campaign filed a preemptive lawsuit Nov. 2 against the Dutchess, Putnam, Westchester and New York State boards of election, plus Harckham.

Filed by attorney John Ciampoli, it contains the usual demand that all voting materials be preserved. It also argues that due to the coronavirus pandemic and changes in New York State law made to deal with the pandemic, there is a need for increased layers of review.

"What's happening now is standard operating procedure in any close New York race," said Astorino campaign spokesman William O'Reilly. "The process of counting absentee ballots in New York is arduous, but protecting the integrity of the vote is worth the extra time. In virtually all New York races that come down to absentees, attorneys from both sides are employed to ensure a fair count. That's what's happening now — it's how the democratic process properly works."

Plus, O'Reilly pointed out, New York allows absentee ballot voters to also vote at polling places. Pre-COVID, that was the proper thing to do if one found him or herself within the district on election day.

"With so many absentee ballots this year, it will take time and energy to ensure that no votes are counted twice because of that. They have to be checked one at a time," he said.

In the lawsuit, Ciampoli also challenged the in-person voting, saying that in Westchester County, "the machines employed in this election are computer operated optical scan machines which are notoriously insecure; may not have been fully or properly tested for a General Election; create issues concerning over-voting, raise privacy and security issues; and are prone to 'hacking' and other fraudulent attacks which can compromise the results of an election."

He also argued that "the numbers of improper and invalid ballots that were counted and canvassed by the respondent Board(s) of Elections’ computerized voting equipment are significant and will influence the final results of the election."

In the 2020 general election, New Yorkers cast a record 1.5 million ballots by mail — "by all accounts it was a huge success," Staudter said, "a tip of the hat to everybody involved."

Because New York allows mail-in ballots postmarked before polls close on Election Day, they could still be collected until Tuesday, so counting couldn't start before then for any race.

Staudter estimated that the Dutchess election board will start counting ballots in the 40th Senate District election Friday, Putnam will start early next week and Westchester, which has 80 percent of the absentee ballots filed in the election, may start counting Nov. 18.

"We may not know results until December," he said.