Politics & Government

UPDATE: Challenged Ballots to be Counted Tuesday

Democrats gaining numbers in absentee ballots it appears.

Officials at the Suffolk County Board of Elections in Yaphank had finished counting absentee ballots from all East Hampton election districts as of Monday afternoon, though the fate of the race remains up in the air as both sides continue to work on contested ballots.

Democratic Commissioner with the BOE, Anita Katz, said Monday afternoon that "99 percent" of those ballots which were originally challenged will be opened, as the party representing the trailing candidate will have no choice but to open ballots to try and gain votes.

Katz, as a BOE official, was unable to provide numbers on the state of the race at the current moment. Attempts to reach party chairs, Trace Duryea and Jeanne Frankl, were unsuccessful.

Find out what's happening in East Hamptonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Katz, said on Monday that she and fellow commissioner, Republican Wayne Rogers, will likely finish the process of whittling down the challenged ballots on Tuesday.

While the process may seem as simple as reading a ballot and tallying a number, "everybody lawyers up," Katz said, resulting in challenged ballots based on a number of legal grounds.

Find out what's happening in East Hamptonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The number of absentee ballots that have trickled in since the Nov. 8 election hasn't changed since last Saturday, with a total of 799 received as of Tuesday out of about 1,050 sent out. Katz said Tuesday's numbers were the most recent as of Wednesday afternoon.

Incumbent Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, a Republican who also ran on the Independence ticket, is ahead at the polls by 177 votes over Democratic challenger Zach Cohen.

Absentee ballots had to be postmarked from they day before the Nov. 8 election, and were accepted by the Suffolk County Board of Elections until Tuesday, a week after the election.

Ballot from the military are accepted up until Nov. 21.

"In this close election, every vote counts," said Christopher Kelley, campaign manager for the East Hampton Democratic Committee.

As of Tuesday, the breakdown of absentees to be counted were:

  • Democratic - 418
  • Republican - 220
  • Conservative - 6
  • Working Family - 1
  • Independence - 22
  • Blanks - 132

All of the paper ballots are being counted at the board of elections in Yapank, unlike in previous years when the absentees that had come in before the election were sent to the voting districts to be counted that night, Kelley said.

The board of elections has a lot of ballots to deal with in other races, too. For instance, Kelley said, 940 of 1,600 ballots had come back so far in Babylon. 

Complicating things in East Hampton is that the ballots are very big, Kelley said, noting that there were 18 candidates for East Hampton Town Trustee alone (in fact, there could be a slight change in the from the absentee ballots). Every vote has to be counted, not just the ones in the supervisor race.

The way the process will work, Kelley said, is that interested parties will break up into teams with a Republican and Democratic election inspector and observers for each part on each team. First, they have to inspect the envelopes, during which any envelopes with "issues" can be challenged. Then, the ballots will be gone through in similar way.

Challenges that cannot be decided upon will be decided on by a judge, Kelley said.

While three percent of the machines will be audited for accuracy, Kelley said he does not expect any recount to take place.

"The nomenclature, is in essence a recount, because its being done with the formal process even though there was no previous counting of the absentee ballots," he said.


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