Three Races Come Down to Absentees: CE, Kent Super, Leg. District 3

There are a number of races in Putnam County that may very well come down to the absentee ballots.

As of 10 a.m. Nov. 4, Republican Putnam County Executive Kevin Byrne was leading with 20,145 votes, versus Democratic challenger Brett Yarris’ 19,550 votes. In case you don’t have a calculator, that’s a 595-vote difference.

Conservative candidate Tatiana Brahimi had 2,271 votes.

According to the Putnam County Board of Elections, there were 1,164 outstanding absentee ballots left to be received and tabulated. Absentee ballots need to be postmarked by Nov. 3 to be counted, and are expected to continue trickling in throughout the following week.

“We count them daily,” said Democratic Elections Commissioner Cathy Croft on Nov. 4. “So it’s a rolling canvas.”

She said the area post offices have been making two trips a day to deliver the ballots to the BOE office. “So we have a week, but we’ll open them every day, scan them every day, and upload the results to our website every day,” she said.

A total of 4,669 absentee ballots were requested, with 3,505 returned prior to Nov. 3. Those votes were included with the totals reported on Election Day.

Croft noted that if residents were checking the BOE site at about the time the polls closed, checking for numbers, they saw results posted for candidates even though none of the precincts had reported yet. Those numbers were the mail-in ballots that had been received which, while they were scanned as they arrived in the days prior to the election, were not tabulated until 9 p.m. on election night.

“More Democrats early vote and use mail ballots,” noted Croft.

When asked about overall voter turnout, the commissioner replied, “Oh, God … a lot.”

There are 74,104 active voters registered in Putnam County. For this election, there were 39,158 in-person votes cast (25,134 who voted on Election Day and 14,024 who voted early) – which is more than half the active voters registered to cast a ballot.

Byrne embraced the lead he had on election night, posting on social media, “Thank you Putnam County. It’s been an honor serving you for 4 years, and I’m excited to serve you for another 4.”

Yarris, however, was not backing down.

“This race is too close to call,” he said. “There’s a less-than-600 vote margin and almost twice that amount in uncounted absentee ballots. We want to make sure every vote counts.”

Coupled with what Croft said about Democrats being the more common mail-in voter, Yarris also said the Republican crossover votes they’ve seen so far means the absentee ballots are unpredictable.

“If the math wasn’t there, we would humbly concede,” he said, adding, “I have full faith in the Board of Elections. Both our Democratic and Republican commissioners are doing a hell of a job.”

The race for Kent town supervisor is also too close for comfort, with Republican incumbent Jaime McGlasson leading Democratic challenger Alex Sewell by a count of 2,886 to 2,811, or 75 votes. According to the Board of Elections, there are 149 outstanding absentee ballots from Kent yet to be counted.

In the race for Putnam County Legislature District 3, Democrat Kathy Kahng leads Republican Joseph Cunningham by only three votes (2,461 to 2,448). There are 144 outstanding ballots from that district remaining.

And in Putnam Valley, there are 163 outstanding absentee ballots, which could, possibly (but unlikely), affect the race for County Legislature District 2, in which Republican Christian Russo is leading Democrat Maia Gilleo by 160 votes, or 2,347 to 2,187.

Check the BOE results at www.putnamcountyny.gov for daily updates to vote tallies.