Judge’s ruling leaves Tenney poised to claim last uncalled congressional seat in New York’s 22nd District

(The Center Square) – A state judge on Friday cleared the way for former U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney to be certified as the winner in the election for New York’s 22nd District Congressional race.

However, the three-month battle for the last uncalled race in the House of Representatives may not be over just yet.

Tenney, R-New Hartford, challenged U.S. Rep. Anthony Brindisi, D-Utica, in a rematch of the 2018 election. Currently, she holds a 109-vote lead in the hotly contested case.

In a statement, Tenney said she was honored to win in what was a hard-fought campaign.

“Now that every legal vote has been counted, it’s time for the results to be certified,” she said.

Brindisi sought an injunction against the boards of elections in Oneida County and New York from certifying the election results until appeals were exhausted. However, Supreme Court Justice Scott DelConte noted in his order that nearly 700,000 New Yorkers have been without representation in the House of Representatives since the new term began last month.

The judge also noted that Brindisi can also take his case to Congress, which has the authority to deny seating a representative under the Federal Contested Elections Act.

Brindisi posted a statement on Twitter saying he was shocked by DelConte’s decision because of several errors that took place during the initial count.

“I believe a full audit and hand recount is the only way to resolve this race,” he said.

DelConte summarized the process to get to the current tally in his order, He said there were 35 missed votes in Herkimer County that were correctly counted and 46 ballots that had been misplaced in Broome and Chenango counties.

No dead people cast ballots, and the only insinuation of voter fraud was rejected. That case involved one person who voted twice. While the order did not list a reason, the judge said both ballots were rejected for other reasons.

The biggest concern, though, was in Oneida County, where DelConte said 1,093 legitimate votes were initially denied by the county board. In addition, more than 2,400 voter registration forms were submitted on time but not processed. Poll books also omitted thousands of names of eligible voters.

In addition, more than 1,500 affidavit ballots were rejected in the county without even checking local or state voter registration records.

“No one will ever know how many individuals, when told by a poll worker that they were not listed in the poll book, simply walked away from their polling site without casting an affidavit ballot or seeking a court order from one of the available on-call judges,” DelConte wrote.

However, despite those problems, the court is limited in what it could do for the 2020 election, he added. He said that state and federal officials can investigate infringement of voters’ rights, while the U.S. House may order a new election or recount.

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