Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Here are the answers to two questions that have come in regarding the counting of the votes on that closely-contested congressional race in the North Country’s 23
rd district:
Jim in Chittenango says he knows he voted for conservative Doug Hoffman in the 23rd, but when he saw the vote totals from his election district on his county website, it showed no votes for Hoffman. And there are other election districts where the same thing happened. Madison County elections commissioner Laura Costello says the errors were made because the new machines that scan the paper ballots print out a receipt tape that many elections inspectors find very difficult to read. The format of that printout can be confusing, and Costello says mistakes were made under the pressure of phoning in the results on election night.
Costello says that as of Thursday, the job is underway of auditing and re-canvassing every machine and result from every polling place. She says those receipt tapes will now get a second and third look, and by the end of the day Thursday, voters in Madison County should begin to see updated information on the elections website.
You also may have heard that 10,000 absentee ballots were sent out in the 23rd congressional district race. So how can it really be over for Hoffman if he's still within about 6 thousand votes of the winner Bill Owens? While 10,000 absentees were mailed out, only about 6,000 have come in, and only a few more are likely to trickle in by the legal deadlines later this month. So, for Hoffman to have a shot, nearly every absentee ballot would have to be for him. This is unlikely since, historically, the absente results tend to be the same as the Election Day vote itself, which was 49% for Owens, 45 percent for Hoffman.
If you've got a question, call us at 446-9900, or e-mail us.
