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WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2020. By John F. Bailey. June 23, 2020:

Candidates for the local 93rd New York Assembly District are telling WPCNR that results tonight in the 5 way race between Kristen Browde, Christropher Burdick, Mark Jaffe, Alex Roithmayr and Jeremiah Frie-Pearson may come down to past the wire, because an all time record of absentee ballots in Westchester have been issued. One candidate says 27,000 absentee ballots have been issued, 5,000 in the 93rd district.

The upshot is that if the top vote getters in the 93rd district are tightly bunched, the absentee ballots will determine the outcome.

It may take to early July to count them all, one candidate says, another more familiar with the process, says a final result may not be conclusion until the end of July.

The law requires that absentee ballots postmarked by or on the primary date are valid and law requires absentee ballots have to be held for 10 days after the election date to assure all absentee ballots are in.

One candidate told WPCNR the Board of Elections may be overwhelmed with not one, but three close races, not only the 93rd district is a competitive field, but the 17th Congressional District is hotly contested. At this time it is unclear who the absentee inspectors are for each candidate, or if they have even been chosen or not.

Since Governor Andrew M. Cuomo postponed the primary to June 15, to avert spreading of the coronavirus at polling places (Westchester has only three for this election, The White Plains Board of Elections, White Plains High School and North Castle Community Center), a record number of absentee ballots were requested.

Since all three contests–Westchester District Attorney, the 93rd District and the 17th Congressional District are on the same ballot, could an absentee ballot be thrown out once and invalidated for all contests? Or does each absentee ballot have to be vetted by representatives for the candidates in each contest? Who is the ballot decider. Is there a higher authority?

So unless the candidates already have their legal inspectors lined up already, they better find them.

One candidate told WPCNR many persons as of the weekend had not sent their absentee ballots in yet. Another said the Board of Elections may be overwelmed by the sheer number of ballots sent out.

Another point: Perhaps you should have a different ballot for for each race in the future when there are multiple races with multiple candidates.

The White Plains Board of Education managed to count approximately 6,000 votes in one night last week. So the Board of Elections should be able to take this challenge in stride.