Mind-boggling things are happening in the race to represent New York’s 22nd Congressional District.
Republican Claudia Tenney, as of the reported results Saturday, led incumbent Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi by 12 votes, according to The Post-Standard in Syracuse.
Last week, 55 uncounted ballots were mysteriously found, The Washington Examiner reported.
As for now, those votes aren’t being counted, and 11 of them have been deemed to have been cast by unregistered voters.
Why are votes still being found in December for an election that occurred on Nov. 3?
Nobody seems to have a coherent answer for the oddities, but the upstate district’s race just keeps getting stranger.
In a stunning coincidence — if you believe in coincidences — 12 additional votes have now been found.
WBNG-TV broke the stunning news Monday, announcing a dozen votes were found in a drawer in Chenango County.
Also Monday, Tenney and Brindisi faced off in court, with New York Supreme Court Justice Scott DelConte hearing from legal counsel for both candidates.
“Brindisi’s team is asking the judge to hold off on allowing a certification [of Tenney as the winner] until they can sort out errors made by county boards of elections. DelConte has called those errors ‘serious,’” WBNG reported.
DelConte, a Democrat, revealed during the proceeding that the 12 additional ballots had been unearthed.
“WOW: Justice DelConte casually mentions an additional 12 ballots were found in Chenango County in a drawer last week,” WBNG reporter Josh Rosenblatt said in a tweet Monday.
“This is on top of the 55 ballots I reported were found last week, now making it 67 found ballots.
“Already a contentious proceeding less than 30 min in #NY22.”
WOW: Justice DelConte casually mentions an additional 12 ballots were found in Chenango County in a drawer last week.
This is on top of the 55 ballots I reported were found last week, now making it 67 found ballots.
Already a contentious proceeding less than 30 min in #NY22
— Josh Rosenblatt (@JRosenblattTV) December 7, 2020
Neither Rosenblatt nor DelConte divulged which candidate the dirty dozen ballots were cast for.
Whether you believe that widespread voter fraud or irregularities occurred in the still-contested presidential election, it’s difficult to deny that this congressional race is getting fishier all the time.
Who keeps legally cast ballots tucked away in a drawer?
It’s difficult for rational people to imagine a scenario in which a person involved in the counting or collecting of votes says, “Gee, I’ll put these 12 ones in here for now.”
The New York contest is one of two close, uncalled races that are currently led by GOP candidates.
Last week, Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks was registered as the winner of the race for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District with a six-vote lead over Democrat Rita Hart, The Des Moines Register reported.
Now, however, Democrats are asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get involved and use an obscure procedure to deny Miller-Meeks the victory.
“The House could refuse to seat Miller-Meeks and create a committee to review the matter,” Politico reported. “If Hart files a contest under the Federal Contested Election Act, then the House Administration Committee will claim jurisdiction.
In New York, it looks like the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine is still running the show.
But the state is actually just led by a majority of run-of-the-mill Democrats.
Somehow, New York continues to unearth votes more than a month after an election that was not initially favorable to the Democrats’ candidate in the race.
Perhaps these mysterious votes will stop being found once 13 or more of them are tabulated and awarded to Brindisi.
It’s immaterial at this point. Now, no matter how the race plays out, New Yorkers lose. The manner in which the state and others conducted elections this year has instilled doubt in the minds of many voters.
A 12-ballot discovery in a race separated by 12 votes, coincidence or not, makes a mockery of the democratic process.
