WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2009. By John F. Bailey. November 4, 2009: County Legislator Bill Ryan’s political future hangs on about an estimated 500 ballots or less, more than half absentee ballots, and an undertimined number of “Emergency Ballots” to be counted in Ryan’s race with Bob Hyland, for the County Legislature 5th District seat. Brian Maloney, the White Plains City Committee Chair, has just received the Absentee Votes to Be Counted figure from Board of Elections Co-Chair, Carolee Sunderland.
Along Came Hyland
Bob Hyland goes into the Absentee Ballots with a tenuous lead over veteran Westchester politician, Bill Ryan below. Ryan, claimed a “close victory” before midnight Tuesday night, and by 1 A.M. Wednesday morning, Republican Bob Hyland had a 2-vote lead, which grew to a 44-vote lead by noon Wednesday. Ryan now finds his future in the all-important, dramatic opening of absentee ballots beginning Monday.
Bill Ryan Tuesday evening at Asian Temptation, calling Victory Prematurely. Race is still too close to call.
Maloney told WPCNR 199 Absentee Ballots will begin to be counted Monday, when the Board of Elections recanvass begins.
Of those 199 Absentees, 110 belong to Registered Democratic voters, 79 are Republicans, 2 Conservative voters and 1 Working Families Party. In addition, Maloney said there were 100 possible absentee ballots that were requested, which may not have all been returned. The Board of Elections waits 7 business days after Election Day before counting them.
A third category of votes to be counted are the Emergency Ballots filled out in at least 6 districts in White Plains where voting machines were temporarily out of commission: 4,18, 14, 9 & 13 and 39, as reported yesterday to WPCNR by the Board of Elections.
(The Board of Elections reported to WPCNR on Election Day yesterday there were a total of 6 districts that experienced temporary voting machine irregularities.) Maloney just guestimated there might be some 200 of those Emergency Ballots or possibly more, depending on the voter flows at the time of outages, before 3 P.M. Tuesday. He cautioned that was speculation on his part at this point. The Emergency Ballots, Maloney said, were placed in sealed bags at the polling places after voters filled them out.
The way Maloney sees it, the absentees may favor Mr. Hyland. He noted that if there is a direct split and all the 110 Democrats vote for Ryan with the 88 other supposedly anti-Ryan affiliated party voters all voting for Hyland, Hyland leads Ryan still by 22 votes, providing Hyland’s count in the recanvass of the election machines Monday holds. Maloney optimistically told WPCNR that you cannot automatically assume all 88 Democrat absentee voters will vote for Ryan either, but he could not see Republicans or Independents voting for Ryan.
On the breakdown of the 100 absentee votes sent out, Maloney said those votes usually follow the trend of the election, though the absentees would not have been affected by any adverse reaction to the anti-Hyland flier which the County Democratic Committee mailed over the weekend that has generated sympathetic support for Hyland, and possibly votes, across the city.
The number of Emergency Ballots also would tend to support the general election trend and would have the factor of the Democratic anti-Hyland mailer associated with their vote, or at least knowledge of it, Maloney said.
The mail-in absentee ballots will be counted beginning a week from Thursday, not Tuesday as previously reported.
Of course, the Board of Elections may find in the machine recanvass beginning Monday that votes were erroneously reported for Mr. Hyland or Mr. Ryan.
Stay tuned.
