Anthony Brindisi increased his lead over Rep. Claudia Tenney by 207 votes as the first of eight counties finished an absentee ballot count today in the undecided 22nd Congressional District election.
Brindisi's lead over Tenney increased from 1,293 to 1,500 votes in the overall race, with seven counties still tabulating absentee and affidavit ballots.
The Cortland County Board of Elections said it counted all of its absentee (972) and affidavit ballots (118) by Thursday morning.
Brindisi, a Utica Democrat, received 612 votes compared to 405 for Tenney, R-New Hartford, according to unofficial election results.
Some of the affidavit ballots, filled out by people who were not on voter rolls at the polls, were not counted because they were ruled invalid, officials said.
The newly counted votes moved Brindisi's total to 9,209 in Cortland County, compared to 7,375 for Tenney. Cortland County is one of three counties in the 22nd District that Brindisi carried on Election Day.
The two largest counties in the district -- Broome and Oneida -- began counting absentee and affidavit ballots on Wednesday. But election officials in the counties declined to release partial results Thursday morning.
Oliver Blaise III, an elections commissioner in Broome County, said almost all of the nearly 5,400 absentee and affidavit ballots in the county have been opened and reviewed by representatives from the Brindisi and Tenney campaigns.
The campaigns filed formal challenges about the validity of fewer than 50 of the ballots, he said, which were set aside for a ruling at a later date.
Blaise said election workers were feeding the valid ballots into scanners on Thursday and hoped to have the process completed by Friday.
Oneida County had completed opening ballots in about 30 of 192 election districts where 4,182 absentee ballots have been received, said Michael Galimo, a county elections commissioner.
Galimo said officials expect the process to continue into next week, with a goal of finishing the count by Thanksgiving.
The five other counties in the district -- Madison, Oswego, Herkimer, Chenango and Tioga - began counting their absentee ballots on Wednesday and Thursday.
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