ALBANY—Some small updates on what's happened since last night in the 20th congressional district's recount.
The State Board of Elections has updated numbers from the Essex County recanvass, matching its official tally to what I reported Tuesday: Republican Jim Tedisco 77,035; Democrat Scott Murphy 77,017.
That tally doesn't include any of the absentee ballots, which will move the overall count up and down for weeks. In the meantime, here are some updates that have come in this morning:
An official from the Columbia County Board of Elections called to say that in the absentee ballot counting yesterday, Murphy gained 55 while Tedisco gained 13 (not 53 for Murphy as I was told last night).
Ryan Rudominer, a spokesman for the Murphy campaign, said that his candidate has gained eight votes in Rensselaer County (not 10, as a Democratic chairman said last night.)
Tyler Brown, a spokesman for Tedisco's campaign, said that Tedisco gained 60 votes in Greene County. Fifty of those votes were from a recanvass of mechanical machines, and 10 from absentee ballots, he said.
Republican lawyers are reportedly objecting to some absentee votes in Columbia County that were mailed in from New York City. John Ciampoli, an attorney representing the Republican State Committee, told me yesterday this was the case in Dutchess County, and a Democratic operative confirmed that it was happening in Columbia County.
Jerry Goldfeder, a prominent election attorney not affiliated with either campaign but who generally works for Democrats, wrote this morning in reaction to the news to say: "Challenging of applications because the voter has two homes is very interesting. The courts have repeatedly held that a person with two homes can choose one bona fide residence to vote from. This is a bogus frivolous challenge that will gum up the works but will undoubtedly not be sustained."
Ciampoli said yesterday, "If there's something I feel uncomfortable with, I'm going to object to it until I can find out more information."
