Two weeks after the Nov. 2 elections, two House races and three state Senate contests across New York remain too close to call. And the state's new electronic voting system, where optical scanners and paper ballots replaced lever machines, has emerged in each case as both the solution and the scapegoat.
In the House races, Democrats Tim Bishop in the first Congressional District and Dan Maffei in the 25th District have gone to court requesting a hand re-count of the paper ballots. Both narrowly trail Republican challengers with thousands of absentee ballots yet to count.
In the state Senate races, the Democrats' lead election lawyer has said questions about the electronic machines could form the basis of any potential challenges to the outcome of the contests.
In a stunning reversal from election night, Republican Ann Marie Buerkle surged ahead of U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei by 659 votes Wednesday in the 25th Congressional District race after Wayne County reported its unofficial returns.
Buerkle began the day trailing Maffei by about 5,600 votes, but she took the lead after a convincing victory in Wayne County, the final county in the four-county district to report its results. Buerkle trounced Maffei in the rural Republican county, 15,429 (63 percent) to 9,191 (37 percent), according to returns Wayne County released at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday — more than 20 hours after polls closed.
