Court will soon decide what to do with Chenango's 55 lost and found votes
High turnout meant some voters had to wait in line on election day. Above, in Sherburne a steady line of several dozen residents waited about a 45 minutes to cast their ballots at the American Legion. (Photos by Tyler Murphy)
CHENANGO COUNTY – The court deciding the validity of challenged votes in the 22nd Congressional District will soon decide if the 55 unopened ballots cast by Chenango County voters, and missed by county election officials, should count in the election.
Chenango County election officials failed to keep track of the 55 votes or count them during the regular election process and missed a deadline. It is now up to Oswego County Judge Scott J. DelConte to determine how they should be handled.
Results could be determine in the coming weeks. The judge told officials Wednesday to process the votes as they should have been under the observation of representatives from the rival campaigns. They will likely meet in the next week or two and then open and count the eligible ballots, before handing any challenges back to the court. The court will then make a final decision on what will count.
Those votes, in addition to another 12, some of which may have also been mishandled by local election officials, have been drawn into question during the regular counting process.
Claudia Tenney, the district's former congresswoman and a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump said she has a 12 vote lead over Congressman Anthony Brindisi, a moderate Democrat.
That means the 67 ballots could swing a very close election, in what would be a bitter outcome for many. However there are also more than 1,500 total ballots that have also been challenged during the counting processes and are also before the court that are from all the counties in the district. More than 300,000 ballots total were cast during the congressional election.
The Chenango Board of Elections was reeling from a cyber attack that took many of their computer systems offline in the days before the election and after.
However, election and county officials initially released very limited information about the attack and only informed the public after they were forced to notify voters that their ballots may have been impacted. They sent out a fax at the time because their regular systems were down.
In contrast since the 55 lost ballots were found, officials have been quick to highlight the technological challenges including lost verification systems, databases and emails, forcing them to use labor intensive paper back-ups instead.
A large voter turnout, especially from mail-in votes due to COVID-19, also complicated the office's usual routines and increased dependency on the technology.
Democratic Party Commissioner Carol Franklin and Republican Party Commissioner Mary Lou Monahan have bristled at the idea of the ballots being described as “lost” or that anyone in the office should be held accountable.
“They were not lost, they were not forgotten,” said Franklin Wednesday. “They were never mislaid, they were never misplaced, they were always where they should have been,” she said. She describe them as “missed.”
She said it was important for people to know officials lost track of the votes in the election's office, and found them in a secure location, a locked drawer where they were kept during the early days of voting.
“We had to do a lot after election day, we lost our whole system,” explained Franklin.
She said an executive order by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo changed election rules this year and forced officials to give votes they may have normally rejected due to errors, extra consideration and allow voters time to fix them. She said some of voters who had their ballots lost might be given a chance to fix them.
The missing votes required local residents to come into the election's office to vote in person, and required them to sign a written court statement explaining why they weren't in the local election system.
Everyone who did that during the nine days of early voting was missed and not counted, explained Franklin.
She complimented her staff for stepping up during a difficult time and doing great work.
The Chenango Board of Elections has a process in place to check for missing ballots before sending final information to the state. Election commissioners confirmed that was not done as it should have been.
The board of elections did not even know the ballots were missing until a staff member stumbled upon the lost ballots days later, while looking for other paperwork and opened the drawer and found the votes.
Monahan, called the votes “forgotten” and said the commissioners, her and Franklin, are the ones ultimately responsible for the error.
“Mistakes will be made. It is unfortunate,” she said. She said the mistake did not represent the exceptional efforts of staff and all the challenges they faced.
Both board of elections commissioners urge anyone with questions to call them at (607) 337-1765, for Franklin or (607) 337-1764, for Monahan.
(Dear reader: Was your vote lost? If you voted by affidavit in Chenango County during early voting and would like to share your feedback with the newspaper, on or off the record, please contact the Evening Sun at 607 337 3070. If you leave a contact number we will call you back. )
Chenango County election officials failed to keep track of the 55 votes or count them during the regular election process and missed a deadline. It is now up to Oswego County Judge Scott J. DelConte to determine how they should be handled.
Results could be determine in the coming weeks. The judge told officials Wednesday to process the votes as they should have been under the observation of representatives from the rival campaigns. They will likely meet in the next week or two and then open and count the eligible ballots, before handing any challenges back to the court. The court will then make a final decision on what will count.
Those votes, in addition to another 12, some of which may have also been mishandled by local election officials, have been drawn into question during the regular counting process.
Claudia Tenney, the district's former congresswoman and a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump said she has a 12 vote lead over Congressman Anthony Brindisi, a moderate Democrat.
That means the 67 ballots could swing a very close election, in what would be a bitter outcome for many. However there are also more than 1,500 total ballots that have also been challenged during the counting processes and are also before the court that are from all the counties in the district. More than 300,000 ballots total were cast during the congressional election.
The Chenango Board of Elections was reeling from a cyber attack that took many of their computer systems offline in the days before the election and after.
However, election and county officials initially released very limited information about the attack and only informed the public after they were forced to notify voters that their ballots may have been impacted. They sent out a fax at the time because their regular systems were down.
In contrast since the 55 lost ballots were found, officials have been quick to highlight the technological challenges including lost verification systems, databases and emails, forcing them to use labor intensive paper back-ups instead.
A large voter turnout, especially from mail-in votes due to COVID-19, also complicated the office's usual routines and increased dependency on the technology.
Democratic Party Commissioner Carol Franklin and Republican Party Commissioner Mary Lou Monahan have bristled at the idea of the ballots being described as “lost” or that anyone in the office should be held accountable.
“They were not lost, they were not forgotten,” said Franklin Wednesday. “They were never mislaid, they were never misplaced, they were always where they should have been,” she said. She describe them as “missed.”
She said it was important for people to know officials lost track of the votes in the election's office, and found them in a secure location, a locked drawer where they were kept during the early days of voting.
“We had to do a lot after election day, we lost our whole system,” explained Franklin.
She said an executive order by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo changed election rules this year and forced officials to give votes they may have normally rejected due to errors, extra consideration and allow voters time to fix them. She said some of voters who had their ballots lost might be given a chance to fix them.
The missing votes required local residents to come into the election's office to vote in person, and required them to sign a written court statement explaining why they weren't in the local election system.
Everyone who did that during the nine days of early voting was missed and not counted, explained Franklin.
She complimented her staff for stepping up during a difficult time and doing great work.
The Chenango Board of Elections has a process in place to check for missing ballots before sending final information to the state. Election commissioners confirmed that was not done as it should have been.
The board of elections did not even know the ballots were missing until a staff member stumbled upon the lost ballots days later, while looking for other paperwork and opened the drawer and found the votes.
Monahan, called the votes “forgotten” and said the commissioners, her and Franklin, are the ones ultimately responsible for the error.
“Mistakes will be made. It is unfortunate,” she said. She said the mistake did not represent the exceptional efforts of staff and all the challenges they faced.
Both board of elections commissioners urge anyone with questions to call them at (607) 337-1765, for Franklin or (607) 337-1764, for Monahan.
(Dear reader: Was your vote lost? If you voted by affidavit in Chenango County during early voting and would like to share your feedback with the newspaper, on or off the record, please contact the Evening Sun at 607 337 3070. If you leave a contact number we will call you back. )
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