NY-22 Minute: Oneida County results help explain incredibly close 2020 race By Luke Perry
The NY-22 election outcome remains undetermined as this week New York State Supreme Court Justice Scott DelConte reviewed rejected ballots and tabulating procedures in the district’s eight counties.
Several county Boards of Election did not follow legally established procedures for registering problematic ballots and did not effectively account for whether these ballots were counted or not. Some counties, including Oneida County, marked ballots with sticky notes. Others, such as Madison County, used a spreadsheet. Per state law, challenged absentee ballots must have the reason directly marked in ink on the ballot.
Yesterday Justice Delconte ordered a hold on certifying election results. The judicial process will resume Monday. Claudia Tenney is unofficially ahead by about one hundred votes, but that is not certain, nor is how many total ballots were cast and whether all votes have been counted. WKTV reported that “thousands of ballots remain to be officially counted.”
Photo by Joleen Ferris/WKTV
The final outcome, which may result after a recount, is nearly certain to be closer than the 4,473 advantage won by Anthony Brindisi in 2018, irrespective of the victor. Unofficial results point to Oneida County as a key reason why. For the time being, Oneida County is the only county to flip from 2018.
Brindisi won Oneida County by 1,923 votes (41,115 to 39,192) in 2018. Turnout was much higher this cycle than previous ones. Both candidates expanded their vote share in the county, but so far, Tenney has done so to a greater degree, for an unofficial lead of 1,802 votes (49,538 to 47,736) in Oneida County. Tenney added 10,346 votes to her 2018 total, whereas Brindisi added 6,621, a difference of 3,725 votes.
Actively registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in Oneida County by 5,985. This conservative edge grows by 1,611 if Conservative Party voters are included (2,102), minus Working Families Party voters (491).
A significant portion of Republican Oneida County voters likely crossed over to vote for Brindisi, or did not vote for Tenney, given she is up by nearly 2,000 with a 7,000 voter advantage. Still, higher turnout this cycle, coupled with a potential modest decline in split-ticketing voting, appears crucial to this incredibly close race.
Luke Perry (@PolSciLukePerry) is Professor of Political Science at Utica College
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