It's Over Jimmy

The more ballots election officials count, the better things look for Scott Murphy and his growing lead over Jim Tedisco. Another 250 were counted today and now Murphy is ahead by 365 votes. It seems that with each passing day that ballots are added to the total, Tedisco is looking weaker and weaker.

From PolitickerNY:

ALBANY—Democrat Scott Murphy's lead over Assemblyman Jim Tedisco in their race to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in Congress has grown to 365 votes, the latest official tally shows.

According to the State Board of Elections, the overall tally now stands at 79,751 for Murphy; 79,586 for Tedisco. The new tally reflects updated numbers from Warren and Essex counties. Counting is still taking place in Saratoga and Washington counties.

And yet another prominent (or once prominent) upstate Republican politician has chimed in to say it's over for Jim Tedisco. Jimmy, you are losing all your friends and allies, it is time to call it quits before that political career gets too many nails in its' coffin.

Tedisco's Friendly Judge Can Only Delay The inevitable

Jim Tedisco may be "hopeful" about the outcome of the still-contested race in the 20th district, but the facts are simply not on his side. With 1,800 approximate votes to count, Murphy's current lead of 273 and the fact that most of the remaining ballots were contested by Tedisco point to a nearly inevitable win for the Democrat. Although it would be great to seat the winner as soon as possible, the judge in the case doesn't feel that way.

From The Albany Project:

Judge Jim Brands, the "pizza stain" judge has just ruled that not only can ballots be challenged on a case by case basis, a move that could delay the seating of a representative for the 20th for quite some time, but that the campaigns can now have access to the applications for absentee ballots so that Tedisco's lawyers can try to argue that the voters that cast those ballots aren't actually residents of NY-20. That's pretty rich when one considers the fact that Tedisco himself is not a resident of NY-20 and couldn't even cast a vote for himself.

This is certainly a break for Tedisco, but I don't know of anyone that thinks that this have any effect on the outcome. That 273 vote lead is just too great a hill to climb.

Instead of the system allowing for the counting to be finished, Judge Brands is delaying the district the right to be represented in Congress and giving Tedisco as many tools as he can to strike already-validated absentee ballots. Unfortunately for Jimmy, the probability of overcoming Murphy's lead is slim to none given who has challenged what votes.

Murphy Is Back On Top!

Damn this is a nail biter! Jim Tedisco and Scott Murphy have gone back in forth in the vote totals, but now that the absentee ballot numbers are rolling in Murphy is slowly but surely increasing his lead. Of course, it is still close and anything can happen, so this is a race that has to be carefully watched.

From TPM:

The official state results show that Murphy has taken an eight-vote lead as of 4:30 p.m. ET yesterday, as absentee ballots begin to be counted. However, there is some more recent data that shows Murphy's lead is actually somewhat larger at the moment.

Columbia County has provided their latest numbers to TPM, showing Murphy picking up another 15 net votes, on a 99-42 margin, compared to the 55-13 in the state's current tally of absentees from here. In addition, the Albany Times Union reports that Murphy has picked up 26 votes, an 88-62 margin, in Essex County.

So as of right now, Scott Murphy leads by 49 votes -- though there are still plenty of ballots left to count. (Late Update: Murphy's newest lead is 46 votes.)

I'm going out of the country tomorrow morning for a week, so if there's anything I'm going to miss (politically speaking) it'll be watching the results from upstate New York. For everyone else, if you are literally going to start biting your nails, listen to Nate Silver at 538 to calm your nerves.

Tedisco Tries To Disenfranchise Absentee Voters In Columbia County

With the counting of absentee ballots now begun, the contest between the lawyers is also under way. We already have reports of the first round of dirty tricks from Tedisco's legal team and it isn't pretty. Tedisco is trying to disenfranchise voters in the heavily Democratic Columbia County and the reasoning behind it is quite ironic.

From The Albany Project:

Those unfamiliar with Columbia County may not be aware that there has been, for many years, a large second home community here -- made up overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, of Democrats from New York City. Many of these voters have been here for many years, in some cases decades. As is entirely appropriate and legal, they have cast their ballots here without incident many times before, including just a few months ago for Barack Obama.

But as I'm hearing it, the Tedisco lawyer in Columbia (sent in by John Ciampoli) came prepared to challenge pretty much anyone who was a Democrat who had their absentee sent to a "downstate" address.

Now, the legal precedent has been affirmed many times on the State and Federal level that a person who owns more than one home can pick whichever of their homes' districts they want to vote in. The law is clear: You don't have to vote at your "primary" residence, where you file your main tax return. So long as you don't register and vote in more than one place, this is 100% legal. There are many good reasons for this: The right to representation where you pay taxes, the difficulty of determining primary residence, the fact that some professionals spend a large part of the year away from their main home, etc.

(How do I know this? Because for several years, I was deeply involved with a concerted effort to re-register these voters in Columbia County. We had the laws carefully reviewed by attorneys, and mailed out thousands of registration forms with legal backup.)

But Tedisco's team evidently wants to reverse that well-established legal principle, and is challenging Democratic second homeowners in Columbia wholesale. (They're also going after some students, apparently.) I don't know if they are doing this elsewhere, but Dutchess County similarly has a lot of weekender voters...

This is disenfranchisement of the most noxious variety, based on who you are, not based on valid and specific ballot defects.

Now a competent judge should be able to toss aside Tedisco's challenges with ease, but the very fact that he is attempting to throw out valid ballots is distasteful to say the least. The action speaks to how Tedisco feels about legitimate voters in the district, especially those that might ruin his chance of getting out of Albany and down to Washington.

Oh and the ironic part? Tedisco doesn't even live in the district he's running for. Shouldn't he be disenfrachised from running in it, according to his own lawyers?

Absentee Ballot Numbers Look Good For Murphy

Standard campaign protocol dictates that in a race that is too close to call, even after several days, that each side stop just short of declaring themselves the winner. Confidence is key and it also helps to bring in donations to fund all the election lawyers either candidate needs. However, beneath what the candidate says, is the reality of the polling situation. As of this moment, with a day to go before counting of absentee ballots begins, Scott Murphy in the 20th District seems to have the numbers on his side.

From The Albany Project:

NY-20: Absentee Ballot Distribution Appears to Favor Murphy (D)

One thing that seems fairly clear is that there tend to be a relatively higher proportion of absentee ballots returned in counties where Murphy performed well on election night. For example, Columbia County, where Murphy won 56.3 percent of the of the vote last week, accounted for 9.8 percent of ballots on election night, but accounts for 15.3 percent of absentees. Conversely, Saratoga County, which is a Tedisco stronghold, represented 36 percent of ballots on election night but only 27.2 percent of absentees:

If I simply apportion the absentee ballots based on the distribution of the election day vote in each county, I show Murphy gaining a net of 173 ballots during the absentee counting phase. In addition, as Michael Barone has noted, although a plurality of the absentee ballot returns are Republican, they are somewhat less Republican than registration in the district as a whole.

And some more from Campaign Diaries:

1. 3107 (45,8%) ballots have been returned from registered Republicans and 2383 (35,1%) from registered Democrats. Among the entire electorate, the gap between the share of registered Republicans and of registered Democrats is 15%. That means that the pool of absentee voters is significantly Republican than the electorate at large.

2. Counties where Murphy performed well are dramatically over-represented in the pool of (uncounted) absentee ballots:

* Columbia County, which gave the Democrat 56% of the vote, cast 9.8% of the district's votes last Tuesday; but 15,3% of the absentee ballots come from there!

* Two other counties that gave Murphy 56% are over-represented. Warren County and Washington County represented 10% and 8,1% of last Tuesday's districtwide, respectively; but they make up 15% and 9,2% of the incoming absentee ballots!

* Inversely, Saratoga County, which saved Tedisco's candidacy by giving him 54% of the vote, represented 36% of the districtwide vote last Tuesday. Now, only 27% of absentee ballots come from Saratoga - a sharp drop.

Let's put this otherwise: Murphy is winning Columbia County and Warren County by 12%; he is losing Saratoga by 8%. Last Tuesday, Columbia and Warren combined made up 20% of the districtwide vote, while Saratoga made up 36%. Now, there are more absentee ballots from Warren and Columbia combined than from Saratoga. That does not bode well for Tedisco.

Philip at TAP points out that while the numbers are good, we should all help chip in to make sure Murphy's lawyers get compensated for doing their work. Tedisco has plenty of people on his side trying to make the results more favorable for him, so we need to work twice as hard to ensure that the results come out with a full degree of accuracy so that the actual winner prevails.

Tedisco's New Ad To Help Poll Absentee Voters

Jimmy Tedisco is on the air again in order to raise money for his "ballot integrity" fund:



Yet when we take a closer look at what Jim's post-campaign machine is up to, integrity is the farthest thing from what is actually going on.

Gennaro-Padavan Coming Down To The Wire

The State Senate has already been wrested from Republican hands, but we still have a race in Queens that is too close to call. Senate District 11 has been in Frank Padavan's hands since 1972, but Councilman Jim Gennaro gave one of the strongest challenges Northeast Queens has seen in decades. Having Barack Obama at the top of Row A (or Row E) didn't hurt either. Despite Frank's good constituent work and ability to pull in the pork, the people of Queens made this written-off race a nail biter.

From Capitol Confidential:

The final remaining question mark in the Senate fight for the majority - the Queens race between Sen. Frank Padavan and James Gennaro - won’t be resolved anytime soon, from what it seems.

There are thousands of paper affidavit ballots that haven’t been counted, and there are plans to recanvass the voting machines this week, going into next week, according to Gennaro consultant Evan Stavisky.

At last count, Padavan had 41,820 votes to Gennaro’s 41,097 votes - a margin of just 723 votes.

I've heard from the Gennaro campaign (one that I've helped out btw) that the margin is 580, but the key is the absentee voters and paper ballot voters. The Gennaro camp is very positive about the results of those uncounted ballots, as well as the recount of the machines. A Gennaro victory is not only good for the people of Northeast Queens, but all of New York by making it harder for the not-so-Democratic Democrats also known as the "Gang of Four."