Finally, Counting The Last Padavan-Gennaro Ballots Will Begin

Nearly two months have gone by since election day and still, one race is not over in New York. Incumbent Frank Padavan is up over 500 votes, yet his team has tried to blockade the counting of nearly 2,000 votes that were initially rejected by the Board of Election. Sen. Frank Padavan has desperately wanted this whole thing to be over with and force a concession from Jim Gennaro, but the Democrat is holding fast to the priniciple that all eligible votes be counted. Finally the courts have decided to let those last ballots be added to the mix.

From The NY Times:

The Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court ruled that the counting of about 1,750 paper ballots could proceed in the razor-thin contest, blocking an attempt by lawyers on behalf of Mr. Padavan to halt any further vote counting.

“Frank Padavan and the Republicans have now asked two different courts to stop the Board of Elections from counting legitimate ballots,” said Mike Barfield, a spokesman for the Gennaro campaign. “Each time the courts have directed that the ballots be reviewed, but Frank Padavan seems to think that the counting of valid votes should stop simply because he is ahead.”

The truth is that Gennaro has long odds in pulling this thing out, even with 1,750 ballots left to be counted. Sure, he could win them by a margin of 1,175 to 575 and win this thing by 20 votes but the chances of that are slim. Jim would make an excellent Senator in the place of Padavan, but it looks like that will have to wait for two years. Still, I'll keep my fingers crossed, ya never know, right?