SamPratt.com

Bill Hallenbeck's lead over Nick Haddad shrunk slightly today—to somewhere between 22 and 25 votes. This came as a result of a hand-recount of all the ballots cast on Election Day by Republican and Democratic inspectors.

A slight change in the 3rd Ward count moved one vote from the Bill to the Nick column, a two-vote swing, cutting into the former’s lead.

In addition, three ballots were held aside after being challenged by the Haddad legal team, due to those ballots having extraneous writing or identifying marks on them. Under the election law, such marks generally void the whole ballot. These automatically (per a pre-count court order) go to a judge to decide on their validity. This means Hallenbeck at this point is either up 22, 23, 24, or 25 votes.

At the end of a grueling day of both parties recounting over 1,500 ballots, Hallenbeck attorney Giff Whitbeck showed up at the last minute, and attempted to demand yet another count of the 3rd Ward votes—having missed the painstaking process that took up most of the day. This move was rebuffed by Commissioner Virginia Martin.

The action continues in the morning with affidavit and absentee ballots, which did not get touched today.

After about 40 minutes of lawyers preenting arguments, Judge McGrath ruled from the bench at about 11:15 am that Article 16 does not permit him to provide the remedy sought by the Haddad campaign. Some 32 ballots were at issue, 17 of them “carried” to permanently disabled voters by Linda Mussmann and Lyle Shook, despite provisions of the New York State Election Law indicating that such ballots cannot be handled by third parties—and must be mailed directly to voters confined to their homes (or nursing homes).