Here’s another BOE election update, fast on the heels of yesterday’s data. Yikes! We are swearing off reporting figures until the final tally is in!
As of Saturday morning, the BOE has 53 uncounted ballots in Shelter Island’s election, up from the 38 reported on Friday.
Here’s how our Board of Elections Republican Commissioner Betty Manzella explained it in an email this morning:
“It is a common misunderstanding since the new absentee ballot law went into effect in 2022. Our absentee statistic sheet shows the total of absentee ballots that will be counted at the BOE, but most people do not realize that the majority have been ‘counted’ as part of the tally prior to election night. ”
“The number of outstanding ballots has also changed,” she wrote in an email, following up on a report she’d shared on Friday. “It was 38 and is now 57. Again, most people do not understand the process and that it is a fluid situation.”
“In the days after the election, we retrieve the machines and open all of the secured ballot bags that come back from the poll sites. Aside from affidavit ballots that need to be counted, people drop off outstanding absentee ballots to the poll sites on Election Day, and those ballots are sorted, confirmed, and counted during the recanvass of the election – which is the process we are in the middle of now.”
Ultimately, absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day and received by November 14 will be included in the final tally, as will those received from active-duty military by November 20. The certification is due to take place on November 22.
Like the BOE, we counsel patience for all eagerly awaiting the final certified outcome of the Island’s contested races for Supervisor and Town Council, where tight margins have ratcheted up tensions.
Meantime, we’ll skip reporting day-to-day fluctuations; in the end, they don’t matter.
