The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Hornell Evening Tribune reports that the absentee ballots in 29th have been impounded due to court order:

The court order, requested Tuesday morning by the state Republican and Democratic party chairmen, means the earliest the written votes will be counted is Monday or Tuesday, said Steuben's Election Board Democratic Commissioner Allan Johnson.

In Steuben, that means that the ballots are locked in the jail.  They will be opened next week, with representatives from both campaigns present. 

Sorry for the confusion on the last post.  I assume (dangerous) that the recanvass of voting machines will also occur around this time.  In any event, those machines are now locked and sealed.

The Massa campaign has slightly altered the message on their web page to note:

There are still a large number of absentee ballots outstanding--far more than the current margin separating Eric & Rep Kuhl--that need to be counted before this election can be decided. We will be actively involved in the recanvassing of the voting machines that will take place in the next few days as well as the eventual counting of the absentee ballots.

Massa is apparently following the same strategy as the Maffei campaign in neighboring NY-25.  This means no concession until at least November 15, since absentee ballots postmarked by the election can be counted if they arrive as late as November 14. 

The inability to concede the obvious is not a specifically Democratic affliction:  Sue Kelly, the Republican incumbent in NY-19, has yet to admit she was beaten by the "Hall" in  "Hall and Oates" John Hall of "Dance With Me" fame. (update:  Wrong cheesy singer/songwriter.  Thanks, Countryboy).

In today's Elmira Star-Gazette, Eric Massa says  "We have a team coming in to look at everything necessary to make sure every vote counts."  I hope that the Massa campaign will do whatever it takes until they're satisfied with the vote count.  If that means a recount, so be it:  there's no need to be prematurely gracious about a race this close.

That said, Massa's lost this race.  It's unlikely that Kuhl's margin will dip below three or four thousand, which means that a few mis-marked absentee ballots or a transposition of tallys on a couple of voting machine won't deliver a Massa victory.

The Massa campaign issued a press release at about 2 a.m. today confirming that they are "not conceding anything".  The latest CNN tally shows Kuhl ahead by 5,602 votes with 99% of precincts reporting.

That's it for tonight.  I will post at least one wrap-up tomorrow. 

11:43:  Correction, Kuhl has declared victory and has been declared the winner by news organizations.  The Massa campaign says they have nothing more to say tonight. 

11:36:  Randy Kuhl has been declared the winner, and the Massa campaign has conceded, according to Rochester Channel 13.

11:32:  Rochester News 10 reports that Massa will wait until every vote is counted.

11:18  Only 3 counties left.  Kuhl's lead has widened to 4,300.  Still in recount land, I'd say, but only barely.

11:06:  On the CNN tally page, of the four counties that aren't in at 100%, three went for Kuhl at 60+% in 2004.  Kuhl's lead will only widen.  If Kuhl is ahead by 3,500 to 4,000 tomorrow a.m., the absentee ballots must go for Massa 70/30.  Unlikely, to say the least.  However, this is truly a squeaker.

10:58:  WHAM 13 reports that the Massa campaign claims that the race is a dead heat and absentee ballots will make the difference.  There are 9-10,000 absentee ballots.  I'm not buying it. 

10:53:  Comparing the pundits to the returns, it looks like the lean Republican seats (NY-29 and NY-25) are staying Republican in NY.  If that's an indicator of the night, this will be a wave, but not a tsunami.

10:40:  CNN just updated their NY-29 page.  51/49 Kuhl, with 80% of precincts reporting.  Kuhl will win in a squeaker.

10:30:  Most Southern counties are going 53/47 or similar. 

10:15:  Kuhl takes Ontario 51/49.  Turnout was better than my model suggested, but it cut the opposite of where it needed to go.  Massa's win percent keeps decreasing in Monroe.

10:12:  Ontario and Cattaragus are almost completely in, and it looks like Massa has lost both.  Monroe holding steady at 57/43 Massa.  It needs to be 59/41. 

10:01:  Hillary and Spitzer are winning everywhere.  Ticket splitting in evidence everywhere.  So much for coattails, which I didn't buy anyway.  Massa losing Ontario with 80% reported.

9:52:  Massa is not winning in the North by a big enough numbers.   He needs to take Monroe by almost 60/40, and squeak out in Ontario.  He's doing neither. Unless something changes, Kuhl takes this race.

Here are the results pages for counties in the 29th that post results:

• Cattaragus
• Chemung (PDF link on that page)
• Monroe
• Ontario
• Steuben (PDF link on that page)
• Yates (PDF Ready at 10:30 p.m.)

I'm watching Monroe and Ontario, and there's nothing conclusive to report at 9:41 p.m.

As of 2 p.m., the turnout in Monroe County was at 29%.  It was 28% at the same time in 2004  2002.  The suburban number is 31%.  Readers are reporting high turnout in the South in the comments. 

I don't want to read too much into either of those numbers, but Monroe is the key to a Massa win.  If Republicans are staying home, and Democrats and Independents are turning out in higher numbers, then it is still good news for Massa.  If Republicans are turning out big in the South, then Massa's in trouble. 

Rochester's WHAM television has picked up the story of the "endorsement" by the Mayor of Canandaigua, a Democrat, which appeared on the Kuhl website for a few hours yesterday.   Her Honor says that she did no such thing, and the Kuhl campaign pulled the endorsement.   Since the endorsement has disappeared from the Kuhl site, I dug through my cache and also checked my feedwhip account to confirm that it was there yesterday.  The Kuhl campaign isn't denying it, and says it was a mistake.

I'm a registered Democrat in Monroe county, and received two calls in the last 24 hours.  The first was last night, from a live Massa volunteer reminding us to vote.  The second was a robo-call at about 11 a.m. from Chuck Schumer on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

I can't get too worked up about the robo-calls or the "endorsement".   I don't think either of those things will greatly affect the outcome of the election.

The weather is better than forecast, and the polls are busy in Northern Monroe County.  In addition to my polling place, I drove by a couple of others, and saw full parking lots between 9-10 a.m.

As usual, I was impressed by the efficiency of the voting operation.  New York State elections should be a model for the rest of the country.  Our mechanical voting machines are far more reliable, and less prone to fraud, than the touchscreen machines.   We should use them for many elections to come, until all of the real and potential problems in touchscreen or optical scan voting have been addressed.

Most of the media attention has been focused on yesterday's Clinton visit and the robo-call dust-up. According to Rochesterturning, the 11 o'clock news on Rochester's channel 13 included a story, but it hasn't been posted online.

Yesterday, comments on this blog reported that the Kuhl web site claimed that Canandaigua's Democratic Mayor, Ellen Polimeni, had endorsed Kuhl. That unlikely news remained on the site for a couple of hours and has now been removed.

The real news in the 29th is that polls are open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The latest election day forecast is rain in the North and intermittent showers in the South. Highs in the low- to mid-fifties.