Confusion reigns in the election for the 22nd New York Congressional District. Incumbent Anthony Brindisi, a Democrat, is currently losing to Republican challenger Claudia Tenney. But, the margin is a razor-thin 12 votes.
But – hold your breath! – 55 votes that had not been counted were recently “found” by election officials. Apparently, 11 of those votes had been cast by unregistered voters. What? How do unregistered voters manage to get past the election officials at the polls who are supposed to be verifying voter registration?
Oh, but that’s not all. Hold your breath! It seems another 12 uncounted ballots were recently found in a drawer!
No, we’re not talking about some banana republic with a history of suspicious election activity. We’re talking about the 22nd Congressional District in New York, right here in the good ol’ U. S. of A.
A judge has the responsibility of sorting this mess out. Well, good luck with that.
How can the American people have confidence in their elected officials if we can’t have confidence in the elections that put them in office?
This is ridiculous.
Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.
Thoughts and Prayers for the Faithful 
Well, we can only have people who are perfect working on the elections, or we can give them the grace to make mistakes the same way we all do. Otherwise, we have to subscribe to one of the various rather paranoid stories about how our entire election process is rigged, by forces unknown out to do us harm. I think going that way would surely bring a smile to Putin’s face.
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I don’t think our choices are between perfection or conspiracy theories. I would be happy with professionalism on the part of election officials. It cuts into people’s confidence when votes keep being found. This is why we have laws and procedures surrounding elections. Deadlines, verification processes, security measures, etc…. Obviously, either the proper procedures were not followed in this election, or something’s afoot. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to come to that conclusion. Ballots aren’t supposed to be kept in locked drawers only to be found later. That’s a departure from procedure. Hopefully, the judge will be able to sort this mess. Unfortunately, it’s probably too late for those who end up on the losing side to place any confidence in the results.
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You may have missed my point. Even the best of us make mistakes, fail, and sin. To take a mistake as evidence of something else is to lack a kind of charity in favor of an already predetermined point of view. Are you claiming that a thrice counted set of ballots with no significant change in result speaks of a lack of professionalism? If so, I’d say you’re requiring perfection, as I originally stated. Have mercy! Furthermore, have charity.
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I don’t think I missed your point. I simply disagreed with it.
Where are you getting the information that the 67 newly found ballots were part of a set that had been thrice counted with no significant change in the results? Every article I’ve found on this story makes no such claim, and the article to which I linked said that, given the thin margin of victory for Tenney, the 67 ballots were enough to change the outcome of the election. If you have a source, please cite it.
You seem satisfied that it was an honest mistake. That’s fine. Only, on what basis did you make that conjecture or, if I may say so, “predetermination”? At the time of our communication, even the judge had not made such a determination. Now, he has. He has said that he has found no evidence of fraud. That’s a good thing. I don’t have all the info he has, and I may agree or disagree with him if I had. But, I’m curious how you came to that conclusion before he did.
Still, there is certainly incompetence here, and the divisions in our national electorate are such that we can hardly afford such incompetence. Is that uncharitable? I don’t think so. Are our standards for a job well done so low now that taking heat for blowing it so badly is regarded as uncharitable? Certainly not for those who have the responsibility of ensuring a just and fair election. If you or I had done such a shoddy job at our workplace, we likely would be fired, given the significant consequences. We’re talking about who is going to represent the constituents of this district in Congress for the next two years. Do you not think they deserve better? I certainly do. If I may say so, your rather cavalier attitude toward the incompetence of the election officials strikes me as somewhat uncharitable, and certainly unjust, toward the voters of the 22nd NY District.
In any case, the judge has (rather uncharitably?) recognized that the election officials failed to follow the law in their handling of the election, and has ordered a recanvassing of the voters of the district. Both sides seem satisfied with that. Unfortunately, the job of recanvassing the voters falls to the same election officials who screwed up so badly in the first place. I guess you work with those you have. But, these people have no business ever again holding such a position.
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