Before we head into several special elections to fill vacancies, there is still one Congressional race to be decided (putting aside any election contests that are pending in the House).  That race is New York’s Twenty-Second District.   What is happening in upstate New York is (and should be) an embarrassment.

The problem in the race is absentee ballots and “affidavit ballots” (what most states call provisional ballots).  In New York, the duty for canvassing such ballots — determining which ones are valid and counting them — falls on county boards of election.  If a candidate disagrees with the ruling of the board of election, the candidate can object to that decision and file a petition with the local “supreme court” (the trial court in New York).  The board of election is then required to make a record of the objection and submit that ballot to the court for review.

In conducting his review, the trial judge found that all of the county boards (eight counties are fully or partially in the Twenty-Second District) had failed to handle the canvass process properly, but the biggest failures have been in Oneida County.  Originally, the Oneida County Board simply rejected all affidavit ballots without even examining them.  The trial court had ordered the board to actually canvass these ballots. Continue Reading...