Republicans Challenge N.Y. Senator's Ballot
"Poll watchers for Republican congressional candidate Jim Tedisco challenged Gillibrand's absentee ballot when it showed up in the queue during counting in Columbia County," reports the Times Union. "The campaign worker argued the senator who splits her time between Greenport and Washington, D.C. was in the county on Election Day and should have voted in person."
Gillibrand supported Democrat Scott Murphy in the race, which is still going after a tight Election Day finish on March 31. As of Tuesday afternoon, Murphy led by 47 votes, with counting of absentee ballots continuing. Both Democrats and Republicans had hoped to seize on the outcome as evidence of the country's perception of President Obama and the Democratic agenda, though the close finish has made that task more difficult.
In a letter published by the Huffington Post, Gillibrand called the challenge "a new low" on the part of Republicans.
"Their latest move to challenge my ballot is part of a much larger attempt to disenfranchise legal Democratic voters and delay Scott Murphy's inevitable victory in the 20th," she writes. "National Republicans are trying to turn the 20th District of New York into the next Minnesota. It is wrong."
The Minnesota reference is to the still unresolved fight for one of the state's two Senate seats. Democrat Al Franken has been named the winner of the race by just over 300 votes, and a court this week upheld the results -- but Republican Norm Coleman has vowed to appeal.
According to the Times Union, New York election law says that to file an absentee ballot you must have a "good faith belief" you won't be in the district on Election Day. Gillibrand was with Murphy in the district on March 31st, though she did not join him until after polls had closed.
PolitickerNY reports that Republican lawyers have also challenged the ballots of Skidmore college students and "multiple-home owners with return addresses in New York City or Florida."