SYRACUSE -- The Onondaga County Board of Elections began recanvassing votes Tuesday in the race for the 25th Congressional District.

Republican Elections Commissioner Helen Kiggins says workers are double-checking results from election night by making a duplicate copy of results onto a memory card. They will then verify the new numbers with those from election night.

Workers also conducted the mandatory 3% audit of voting systems by hand-counting ballots from randomly drawn systems to verify the information matches results from election night.

Onondaga County will open absentee ballots starting November 17 per a court order.

Overall, Republican challenger Ann Marie Buerkle leads Democratic Incumbent Dan Maffei by 684 votes.

Tuesday afternoon, elections officials say Buerkle added three more votes to her lead after 81 ballots in DeWitt were not scanned on election night.

Last week, Monroe County started recanvassing. They say there has been no change in vote totals. Election officials there can start opening absentee ballots on Friday.

Cayuga County has finished recanvassing and will open absentee ballots Wednesday at 2:00 pm. The current totals in Cayuga County are 959 for Maffei and 1,758 for Buerkle.

Wayne County election officials say they're still in the middle of recanvassing. They will open absentee ballots starting November 15.

Both campaigns have lawyers in the area to handle any legal battles that come up over the next few weeks. The Maffei campaign is performing a survey and contacting absentee voters by phone, in an effort they say to verify the integrity of the votes.

In related news, a judge has set a court date for one week from today to hear arguments from attorneys from both campaigns on how this election could be decided. 

Judge Brian DeJoseph of the State Supreme Court in Syracuse heard from Dan Maffei's attorneys Monday in court. They presented a lengthy brief reserving virtually every legal option they could think of - to preserve their right to inspect and question every vote cast.

Maffei's campaign named all of the county elections commissioners and Ann Marie Buerkle as respondents in the case. Click here and here to read those petitions.

The hearing is set for November 16 at 3:00 p.m.