Absentee Ballot count could reach 17,000 in 24th Congressional district race

By By PAT BAILEY

UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - Incumbent democrat Michael Arcuri is claiming victory, while Republican challenger Richard Hanna will not concede. Now there are potentially more absentee ballots to be counted, as they continue to come into the board of election offices around the 24th district.
     
What was once thought to be 9,000 absentee ballots could be almost double that once they are all in. There will be no definite number until probably the end of the week. That is because for absentee voters, they had until November 3rd, Monday, to have their ballot post marked. That means thousands poured into board of election offices across the 24th district Tuesday, but potentially not all of them. Board of elections officials will wait until next week to count the absentee ballots.

"We're waiting for the seven days for the absentees to be returned because if they're postmarked as of November 3rd, they have seven days in which to get them returned." said Angela Pedone Longo, Oneida County Democratic Election Commissioner.

There are 11 counties in the 24th congressional district. However not all of those counties, are like Oneida County, where the whole county is covered in the 24th district. In most cases just a portion of the other 10 counties fall into the 24th district. The numbers we do know for sure, are the absentee count in Oneida County. About 4,500 are back. As for the other counties, a final number will have to wait until Friday.

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