Progress in counting challenged absentee ballots in the race for New York's First Congressional District continues to be slow.
After a morning of wrangling over challenged ballots, representatives of both candidates agreed to dismiss only 80 objections apiece.
The tally of those 160 ballots allowed back in resulted in a net gain of 27 votes for the incumbent, Democrat Tim Bishop
The two sides seem to be at an impasse. According to Bishop spokesman Jon Schneider, representatives of challenger Randy Altschuler "refused to give up any more objections after those 80."
Judge Peter H. Mayer is scheduled to go to the Board of Eletions today at 3 pm to begin ruling on objections. In a conference yesterday morning in his Riverhead courtroom, the judge asked lawyers for both candidates to deal with eliminating objections "expeditiously." Yesterday afternoon, the two sides dismissed a total of 129 objections, followed by the additional 160 today.
Altschuler is holding 1146 of the remaining 1,762 objections, Schneider said. He said 649 of Altschuler's objections are based on residency.
"Are you going to find anecdotal evidence of one guy in Manhattan who shouldn't have voted," asked Schneider, referring a the voter Altschuler's spokesman Rob Ryan said voted in Manhattan on Election Day after filing an absentee ballot in Suffolk County. "Sure you can. Are you going to find two or three or 10? Maybe. But are you going to find 600?"
Schneider said in order to win this race, Altschuler will need to "disenfranchise 600 more voters" and then needs to gain 249 votes from the remaining pool of voters.
"Every time we've counted ballots, with the exception of those 71 military ballots yesterday, Bishop has gained ground," Schneider said.
He said the two sides today were allowed to view 160 ballots that were not scanned by machines on Election Day, though they were not officially tallied because, he said, the Republicans would not agree to count them. Bishop also gained 12 votes from those ballots, Schneider said.
"At what point do you give in to the math of the situation?" Schneider asked. "It's December."
Altschuler's spokesman could not immeditaely be reached for a response.
Check back later for a report on developments following Judge Mayer's appearance at the Board of Elections this afternoon.