Syracuse, N.Y. -- Incumbent Sen. John’s Mannion lead over challenger Rebecca Shiroff shrunk to 51 votes with a hand recount in their New York State Senate race set to start next week.
The latest numbers provided by the Onondaga County Board of Elections on Wednesday included seven ballots that were ruled permissible by State Supreme Court Justice Scott DelConte. The new numbers also removed eight votes that the Board of Elections found it had double-counted while checking its work.
The new numbers showed Shiroff, a Republican, had closed the gap by six votes. The district includes parts of Onondaga and Oswego Counties.
A hand recount in the race will start on Tuesday. A recount is required in any race in New York decided by less than .5 percent of the vote.
DelConte was asked to provide rulings on 24 ballots on Friday.
The ballots had been ruled out by election officials from both parties, but the candidates wanted an outside opinion.
DelConte ruled that seven absentee ballots with signatures that the Board of Election said didn’t match its records should actually be counted. He noted that signatures of young and old voters have a tendency to change over time. He sent two other ballots back to the Board of Elections for more work.
DelConte found that a number of other votes had been ruled out correctly by the commissioners for reasons that included unsealed envelopes, votes cast by voters who had been purged from voter rolls, a missing signature and two attempts to have a vote cast by an individual with the power of attorney for a voter.
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