Altschuler's Lead Drops to 280 Votes - Counting Continues

updated Nov.6 11:05am

Farmingville, NY – Congressman Tim Bishop’s spokesman Jon Schneider issued the following statement on the vote count in New York’s 1st Congressional district:

“The vote count released is far from final; rather, this is simply one of many steps to ensure that every voter’s voice is heard through our electoral process.  At this point the only way to be sure of the accuracy of the count is to do a full hand recount of all the ballots. Regardless of the outcome, Suffolk County residents need to have confidence in the integrity of the count. There is a reason that Suffolk County residents insisted on having a paper backup and these circumstances demand we use it. 

“Nothing is more important than counting every vote and we are confident that once that process is completed, Congressman Bishop will emerge victorious. Congressman Bishop has been a tireless advocate for Long Island families over the course of his career and he looks forward to continuing to work hard on their behalf.”

New tabulations by the Suffolk County Board of Elections put Randy Altschuler 392 votes ahead of Tim Bishop. With 9,900 absentee ballots yet to be counted. No winner has been declared but the Altschuler campaign, according to press person Rob Ryan, is pretty happy.  He predicted that absentee ballots would be opened Tuesday, November 9^th, he also acknowledged that the final outcome might not be known for some time. 

Smithtown Democratic Chairperson Edward Maher confirmed that at this time the re-canvass puts Randy Altschuler  in the lead.  

Update on Monday, November 15, 2010 at 11:54PM by .

According to an email sent out by a Tim Bishop spokesperson(11/13/2010) the Board of Elections will begin counting the 11,000 outstanding absentee and affidavit ballots on Tuesday, Nov.17th.

It is also anticipated that sometime this week Congressman Bishop will seek to have the court order a hand count of the 185,000 ballots cast on the new voting machines in Congressional District 1. 

Currently Randy Altschuler has a 383 vote lead over Tim Bishop.

Update on Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 2:15PM by .

Newsday is reporting that after counting all the election districts in Smithtown, Randy Altschuler’s home, and thirty-nine out of forty-two election districts in Southampton, Tim Bishop’s home town, Republican Randy Altschuler has a two hunderd and eighty vote lead over Tim Bishop.