The official vote count for Tuesday’s special election to decide the next Saratoga Springs public works commissioner will continue into next week.
From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Saratoga County Board of Elections officials, city party committee leaders, and lawyers counted write-in ballots from Tuesday's election.
The only name on the ballot was Republican Chuck Marshall. City Democrats failed to nominate a candidate after a dispute over the election's timeline wound up in court. Democrats argued the election timeline approved by the city council in October was only a proposal while the Republican elections commissioner balked at the idea of a January special election.
Interim Commissioner Hank Kuczynski, a Democrat, decided to run a write-in campaign with just weeks to go. He had been selected to fill the role until an election to staff the post through the end of 2025 after former commissioner Jason Golub stepped down in August.
With 1,786 write-in ballots and 1,757 votes for Marshall, Kuczynski held a theoretical lead of 29 if all write-ins went for him and were uncontested.
The official count of voting day ballots wrapped up late Friday with 1,028 votes for Kuczynski, 60 ballots with objections, and 13 write-in votes for various candidates other than Kuczynski.
On election night, Marshall was cautiously optimistic that an official count of the ballots would only cut into Kuczynski’s potential total.
“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.
There were a number of different reasons to object to ballots, including marks outside of the correct box or misspelling of Kuczynski's last name. Ballots that have marks or writing outside the spaces provided for voting for a write-in candidate made up the majority of the objections heard Friday.
A number of ballots had other candidates written in including Donald Trump, Jason Golub, and "any Democrat."
Early and absentee votes will be counted early next week. Contested ballots may be seen by a Saratoga County Supreme Court judge in the coming days.
