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Onondaga County tallied 28,846 absentee ballots after the third day of absentee ballot counting on Thursday. 

The county was initially set to begin counting ballots Monday, though lawsuits from multiple candidates including Rep. John Katko (R-Camillus) caused the board of elections to delay counting by one day. As of Friday, the county had received 57,407 absentee ballots. 

“They got through 7,500 ballots on the first day,” Onondaga County Board of Elections Democratic commissioner Dustin Czarny said in a podcast recorded after counting concluded for the day. “That’s usually the slowest day.”

Of the absentee ballots counted in the race for New York’s 24th Congressional District, only 8,344 went to Katko. Democratic challenger Dana Balter, a former Syracuse University professor, took 18,297 votes.

Katko led the race by about 20 percentage points after all in-person early and election day votes were counted last week. He declared victory over Balter’s campaign that night, though Balter’s campaign responded she would not comment until all absentee ballots had been counted. 

In the 53rd State Senate District, incumbent Rachel May (D-Syracuse) widened her lead over Republican challenger Sam Rodgers in Onondaga County. May took 15,059 of the absentee votes counted while 4,697 votes went toward Rodgers. May led the race by only about 200 votes after early and Election Day votes were counted.

May declared victory Thursday afternoon. Czarny said Tuesday that he expected to be mostly done counting ballots for the District 53 State Senate race by Wednesday, though the county still tallied votes for the race on Thursday. 

For the 127th Assembly District, Democrat Assemblyman Al Stirpe continues to lead over Republican Mark Venesky. Stirpe got 4,319 additional votes from absentee ballots in Onondaga County while Venesky received 2,071 more votes.

With record numbers of absentee ballots cast this election, Czarny emphasized the importance of making sure each ballot counts.

“I sincerely believe that every vote should count,” Czarny said. “We have to wait for these mail-in ballots to come in because they are legally cast.”

The board of elections staff was only able to use two-thirds of the tables it had planned to use Tuesday because of “judicial maneuverings” that took up office space, Czarny said.

The board of elections counted ballots at 14 different tables with two staff members working at each table in addition to the ballot observers, he said. The ballots were counted in three different rooms to ensure proper social distancing.

The votes counted on Tuesday came from the city of Syracuse as well as other rural areas in the district, Czarny. He expects a “big update” to come Wednesday.

Czarny expects to finish tallying votes in the middle of next week. Staff members will continue to count ballots throughout the week and will take a break Sunday. The election must be certified by Nov. 28, he said.

“Especially this year, with 57,000 absentees to count. We just need to get it done,” he said. “I’m very hopeful that we will be done by the middle of next week.”

Published on November 13, 2020 at 11:45 pm

Contact Mira: mlberenb@syr.edu