Tuesday’s special election for Public Works Commissioner in Saratoga Springs is still too close to call.
After months of debate over how to select the next long-term head of the city’s second-largest department, voters may still be days away from knowing the final results.
The Democratic write-in candidate is narrowly leading. Interim Commissioner Hank Kuczynski was facing Republican nominee Chuck Marshall for the right to serve for the rest of the year.
According to the Saratoga County Board of Elections, as of late Tuesday, there were 1,774 write-in votes, while Marshall tallied 1,738.
Marshall was the only candidate whose name appeared on the ballot after a dispute over the election timeline wound up in court. Democrats failed to nominate a candidate by the deadline, which led Kuczynski to mount a write-in challenge after being appointed to the seat in October.
Marshall and his campaign were hopeful as they watched the results come in at the Inn at Saratoga. He had come out on top in early and absentee voting by about 40 votes in the bid to join the five-member city council.
“I still think our count is solid. I mean when you’re the only person on the ballot and you’re measuring circles that are filled in versus write-ins, I think our vote is going to stand and the likelihood is their vote is going to decline,” said Marshall.
As unofficial results were beginning to roll in, Kuczynski said he’s proud of the last-minute campaign.
“The final numbers indicate I’m ahead by a small margin and we’re cautiously optimistic. And there’s undervotes to be counted and absentee ballots to be counted and we’ll move forward as soon as I’m contacted by the board of elections,” said Kuczynski.
Democratic Committee Chair Otis Maxwell was also cautiously optimistic.
“It’s in our favor, the votes are in our favor we’re going to have to wait and see how it shakes out, though. We’re not ready to call it a win at this point,” said Maxwell.
Even with the uncertainty of the election’s results, Kuczynski was confident the department will continue to run effectively. As a snowstorm was beginning to blanket the city Tuesday night.
“The sanders will be calling out, we’ve got a foreman that will make that decision, be contacted by the police, and at 4 o’clock we’ll bring everybody in and everybody can go to work tomorrow because the roads will be clear,” said Kuczynski.
With the results hovering around a 30-vote difference, legal challenges are possible. Republican Committee Chair Mike Brandi tells WAMC he expects the final results won’t be known for some time.
“There’s actually two minor candidates who are potentially likely to get some degree of write-in votes. Whether that’s one, five, ten, time will tell. And inevitably you get the occasional Mickey Mouse or parody votes in write-ins. Usually that’s more common with Presidentials but with 1,700 write-in votes cast I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a few of those as well. And then the last wrinkle is looking through the ballots and making sure they are validly cast, that they are proper and signify the voter’s intents. And that will be the last step of it to make sure any votes for the Democratic candidate are properly cast. So, there’s a lot of steps that go into assessing what the accurate result is and I think we’re still a few days away from some degree of clarity,” said Brandi.
Republican Saratoga County Board of Elections Commissioner Joe Suhrada tells WAMC he expects an official count of the vote to take place Friday or early next week.
