Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - In the aftermath of Election Night in Western New York on Tuesday, there remains one race locally that is too close to call, and the Erie County Board of Elections is still counting the ballots.
The race for the 143rd New York State Assembly district between Republican incumbent Pat Chludzinski and Democratic challenger Ryan Taughrin still remains tight with only a 500-vote difference, according to Republican Elections Commissioner Ralph Mohr.
"Under New York State law, absentee and mail-in ballots have until next Tuesday to arrive, and actually military and overseas ballots have 13 days after the election to arrive. So we are still tailing votes that are there," said Mohr in an interview with WBEN.
In addition, Mohr says there are a number of votes that were cast in the precincts with provisional ballots.
"If somebody had appeared at one of the polling places and they moved, or there was some question with regard to their registration, they would be offered a ballot to vote, but that ballot would be sealed and returned to the Board of Elections for further investigation," he noted. "About 50% of those ballots usually come out to be valid. We're still tailing the number of provisional ballots there are in the 143rd district and throughout the county, and those will be counted on the canvass as well."
It doesn't matter whether there's a 10-vote difference or a 10,000-vote difference, Mohr says the Erie County Board of Elections goes through a recanvass process that goes district-by-district to certify the results of a given race.
"We expect to take somewhere about two-to-three weeks, and certification would probably be coming around Thanksgiving," Mohr added.
Every election, the Board of Elections methodically goes through each election districts in the county to remove the ballots. But there's also the ballots returned by military, foreign, federal voters overseas, and absentee voters that need to be taken into consideration.
"We still could have a number of ballots that are returned. Each day as those ballots come in and we tally those, we place those results on our website, and the website is updated by the end of each day," Mohr said.
If a race is within one-half of 1%, state law requires the Board of Elections to then manually hand-count every single ballot that was cast in the race.
"In effect, what we do when we receive the ballots after Election Day back at the Board of Elections, we go through the process of verifying how many ballots were handed out in a particular district, and making sure that all those ballots are accounted for," Mohr explained.
All of it is to prove that the Board of Elections is fully transparent in the voting and tallying process.
"We don't begin every canvas or a count without notifying the candidates, without allowing them or their representatives to be present. The public can also come down and watch the results," Mohr said. "And we go through this process, and as we're counting, we also allow the candidates and their representatives and the public's to ask questions and to interject their comments in the process of voting. So we're very proud of the fact that we have a very open and transparent process, and we've found that that instills the confidence of the votes counting in Erie County to the public.
Tight races like the one in the 143rd State Assembly district proves to Mohr that every vote in an election does matter.
"I've been here 33 years, and we've had a number of instances in which a single vote makes a difference in a race. We had a countywide race that was a difference of five votes, so you have to make sure that everything is counted very carefully and accurately," he added.
