The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

WETM reports that the absentee ballot count in the 29th will start tomorrow, which is earlier than the last reported date of next Monday, the 17th.

Exile at The Albany Project reports that an audit of Randy Kuhl's 2004 campaign by the Federal Election Commission found some irregularities. From a scan of the audit, it looks like Kuhl's State Senate campaign committee was working as his Congressional committee for a while, and those in-kind donations weren't correctly accounted for. The FEC says that the total of mis-stated contributions is about $118K.

It's not clear to me what the Kuhl campaign owes because of the mis-statement. Exile thinks they owe the whole $118K, because the report says so. Duh. (Updated)

The Star-Gazette has Eric Massa's schedule for today. He's in Schuyler County, Canandaigua, Elmira and Bath.

Happy Veterans Day to all the Veterans reading this.

13-WHAM's Sean Carroll posts his reflection on covering the 29th for the last four years. Sean notes that the combined difference between the 2006 and 2008 races was less than 2,000 votes.

Sean wonders if there will be a Massa/Kuhl III. I never got the impression that Randy Kuhl enjoyed fundraising or campaigning. A rematch by Kuhl would require a much bigger fundraising effort, since he wouldn't be able to count on as many "automatic" PAC donations running as a challenger. I just don't see a Kuhl challenge in 2010.

David Kubissa at the Star-Gazette sees hostility in Massa's recent fundraising letter.

Eric Massa is visiting a Brighton Middle School today to discuss what it means to be a Veteran.

Today's news that Chris Van Hollen [MD-8] has agreed to continue at the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee makes this as good a time as any to evaluate the presence of the DCCC in the 29th race.

Unlike last cycle, the DCCC poured real money into the 29th this year, spending almost $1 million on ads and mailers. This money was spent entirely on one message: Randy Kuhl voted for free trade legislation that hurt the district.

Whether that message resonated in the 29th is anyone's guess. Even though the TV ad contained one misleading claim (it tried to tie jobs lost because of NAFTA to Kuhl, who wasn't in Congress when NAFTA passed), that distortion didn't become a campaign issue. I assume part of the reason was that the NRCC released a distorted ad around the same time.

In that respect, Eric Massa was lucky. In neighboring NY-26, Howard Owens at the Batavian thinks the DCCC caused real damage:

Whatever chance Kryzan had, the DCCC killed it. First, the negative ads were over the top and in no way truthful. Second, they also crowded out Kryzan's message and didn't allow Alice to be Alice. In the end, they played right into the Lee/GOP strategy of muting Kryzan's plans and policy voice.

The DCCC spent almost $2 million on that race.

I used to think Massa was unlucky because the DCCC wouldn't recognize that the 29th was winnable and only committed money at the last minute. Now I think he's lucky that the DCCC didn't spend more in the 29th. Their cookie-cutter, misleading ads and one-size-fits-all message are often a hindrance, not a help, to the candidates they are trying to support.

The Star-Gazette has some more details on the counting procedure.

The Democratic and Republican election commissioners from each county will ride together to each voting machine in every district in their county.

Each campaign shall be allowed two operatives to accompany the commissioners.

The commissioners and the campaign operatives shall open each machine and allow all present to read and record the results.

Every board of elections shall provide each operative with a copy of the congressional race results from each voting district to compare in the field with the actual machine counter being observed.

The process shall not start until all operatives from each campaign are present.

Each operative shall have a full opportunity to look at each counter number on each machine.

In addition, all paper ballots — including absentee, military, emergency ballots and affidavits — will be counted in each election district starting Nov. 17. Again, operatives from each campaign will be allowed to observe the process.

Each ballot will be examined one at a time on a table large enough to accommodate the campaign operatives and board of election staffs, Pulos said.

If either side objects to any ballots counted during the process, those ballots will be set aside for review by a judge.

Today's Star-Gazette has a couple of analysis pieces. One, by Erin Kelly, points out that Republicans are down to a couple House seats. The other, by David Kubissa, points out the role of Monroe County in the 29th.

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader front page [pdf], which reports that the Kuhl and Massa campaigns have agreed to a final count of absentee ballots on November 17. This will allow time for military ballots to arrive, so the one count will be final.

The Corning Leader and the Ithaca Journal have counting stories.

In the Leader's story, Randy Kuhl's attorney says that the Kuhl campaign would be open to counting ballots before Wednesday's court date in Bath.

In Journal examines a couple of instances of broken voting machines in Chemung and Steuben County. In Chemung, voters were issued emergency ballots until a new machine could be obtained. In Steuben, a machine for disabled voters was dropped before the election in the September primary, but no votes were on the machine at the time. Both of those instances were cited in Kuhl's injunction filing.

In both stories, Kuhl spokesman Meghan Tisingner said it's inaccurate to say that it's impossible for Randy Kuhl to win.