Lost Ballots Recovered In 22nd District Could Sway Race Won By 12 Votes

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Imagine winning an election for a seat in the upcoming U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC by a slim margin of 12 votes. The feeling is of tremendous relief, but also the experience is like a sudden stop in a cruising car. Then, comes the whiplash from an upstate New York race.

Representative Claudia Tenney (R) had won over the incumbent Representative Anthony Brindisi (D) by a mere 12 votes in New York’s 22nd Congressional District. The Chenango County Board of Elections found 55 early ballots that had not been counted, according to The Utica Observer-Dispatch newspaper.

A judicial review was ordered by the local Supreme Court, and it was already in the recount process in Oswego County. The attorneys for Brindisi and Tenney were both sent a copy of the letter.

Chenango County Attorney Alan Gordon sent a letter about the discrepancy in numbers discovered by the county’s board of elections commissioners. Gordon’s letter included some stunning news. The country had “apparently mislaid” the ballots. There were 44 ballots that could be counted and 11 came from unregistered voters.

Gordon sent the commissioners a letter requesting they leave the ballots unopened and secured in their offices:

‘Those ballots were apparently mislaid and never counted. I am looking for direction from the Court on how to proceed with the canvassing of these additional votes.’

Reporter for WBNG12 News Josh Rosenblatt sent this tweet:

WOW: An attorney from Chenango County drops a bombshell with the court– 55 uncounted early votes were just found, having never been seen before. In a congressional race separated by just 12 votes, these newly discovered early votes could make the difference #NY22 @WBNG12News’

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Ransomware attacked the Chenango County government including the board of elections. That meant, it was unable to send the results via email during “the judicial review.” Instead, the counters faxed over the results.

Supreme Court Justice Scott DelConte ordered each county board of elections in the district to prepare a current vote tally. As a result, they discovered 155,492 ballots in Tenney (New Hartford) compared to Brindsi’s vote count of 155,480. The difference is a grand total of 12 votes.

Chenango County Elections Commissioner Carol Franklin said that she did not know how they had been overlooked, according to The Utica-Dispatch newspaper:

‘My guess is they came in early and they were put aside and mislaid.  would hope that we could open them tomorrow with representatives present from each campaign.’

DelConte ordered the deadline for motions to be amended to Wednesday. Oral arguments on the opposition papers and cross-motions were scheduled for December 7 at the Oswego County Supreme Court:

‘In the results the Chenango County Board of Elections provided on Monday, Tenney led Brindisi by 11,886 votes to 9,288 votes. Brindisi outperformed Tenney in early voting, with 1,903 votes to Tenney’s 1,585, based on the figures not including the found ballots.’

That has left as few as 2,000 additional absentee and affidavit votes to be recounted. Carol Franklin, Chenango County Elections Commissioner said she had no idea why the votes had not been included in the original count.

Twitter world went a little crazy when they saw this tweet. Check out some of our favorite responses below:


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Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.

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