There are three congressional campaigns still possessing uncounted ballots. Two more are now headed to official recounts.
Recounts:
- In Texas, Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX-27) is paying to have recounts conducted in six counties of the Rio Grande Valley district. He officially trails Republican Blake Farenthold by 799 votes after all ballots have been recorded.
- In NC-2, Rep. Bob Etheridge (D) has officially requested a recount of his losing result versus Republican Renee Ellmers. Election officials there have also counted and canvassed the entire ballot universe and Ellmers leads by 1,489 votes. Both of these margins will likely vary by only a few votes through a recount because no new ballots will be added to the process. Considering the original counts were verified by a canvass process means the ballots have already effectively been counted twice.
The three races where more ballots could still arrive are in IL-8, NY-1, and NY-25.
Uncounted:
- In the suburban region north of Chicago in IL-8, Rep. Melissa Bean (D) trails GOP opponent Joe Walsh by 350 votes. According to election officials, “hundreds of provisional votes” remain to be counted and absentee ballots can still come in from overseas. Today is the final deadline for the latter category.
- In NY-1, where a voting machine counting error has flipped the election night result in favor of challenger Randy Altschuler (R) by 383 votes, Rep. Tim Bishop (D) has already gone to court to request a hand count of the entire district. Less than 10,000 ballots remain to be counted, and the clerks are reporting that 4,200 are from voters in parties supporting Altschuler and 3,900 carry labels from parties that endorsed Bishop. New York law allows military and overseas ballots to be counted as long as they arrive prior to Nov. 24.
- A similar situation exists in the Syracuse-based NY-25. A count of the 7,000+ absentee ballots already received began yesterday, but the process won’t be completed until Nov. 24, as explained above. GOP challenger Ann Marie Buerkle leads freshman Rep. Dan Maffei (D) by 659 votes.
Thus, the 2010 election continues …
