Last county in district to count absentee ballots
WAYNE COUNTY -- UPDATE: The Wayne County Board of Elections has finished tallying 1311 absentee ballots. Republican Ann Marie Buerkle outpaced incumbent Democrat Dan Maffei 790-521, picking up 269 votes and extending her slim lead in the race for the 25th Congressional District.
Buerkle's campaign released this statement today.
"We are pleased with the numbers released by Wayne County today. There is another court hearing set for Tuesday morning, and we will wait to hear Judge DeJoseph's determination now that all absentee ballots in New York's 25th Congressional District have been counted. While we remain confident that Ann Marie Buerkle will emerge the victor, we need to allow the process to proceed as set forth in the original court proceedings initiated by the Maffei campaign."
The two sides will meet in court on Tuesday to determine if upwards of 200 absentee ballots from the four voting counties should be tabulated. The ballots are disputed because of various problems with them, such as signatures not matching voter registration and extra marks on the ballots.
A Maffei spokesperson says the congressman has given no indication that he will concede at this point and they are planning on going through with the court proceedings.
Earlier:
It may be Sunday, but it is a work day for Wayne County's Board of Elections, as the vote counters try to wrap up work on absentee ballots.
By Saturday evening they had opened all the mailed-in absentee votes, but expected to finish tallying Sunday.
The results could decide the 25th District Congressional race, where Republican challenger Ann Marie Buerkle leads incumbent Dan Maffei by a couple hundred votes.
