The New York November elections are over; the ballots were counted, the winners: chosen, save one. In Upstate New York, in our District, the 25^th, we were still counting. The nation’s eye was fixed on us, holding its breath to see if yet another Republican will replace a Democrat in the House of Representatives in Washington.

The initial count was completed several weeks ago in a race between incumbent Democrat Dan Maffei and Republican Ann Marie Buerkle, yet the race went on as 6,000 absentee and military ballots from Onondaga county were counted because the race was still too close to call.

Both remember the presidential election of 2000, where Republican George W. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore by the narrowest of margins. With the voting machines not working properly, recounts were held. Each time Gore received the news that he was outvoted,  he would ask for another recount.

Eventually this decision ended up coming before the Supreme Court which ruled Bush had won Florida and the electoral votes that went with it giving him a victory over Gore–despite having 500,000+ less individual votes.

Both New York States candidates were scared something like this could happen again and as a result, both were forced to keep a close eye on the situation. Maffei felt he had to even more so after losing the initial vote count on Election Day.

Recently, Maffei announced he would be contacting voters to see which way they had voted. Ultimately, if the response they gave was the opposite of what they put on their ballot, then he has the right to try and disenfranchise their vote. Once he called all the absentee voters, he turned a report into the courts so that they could use it to compare to the results of the final vote count after the absentee ballots were counted.

In addition, Maffei and his campaign actively oversaw the review of each absentee ballot that was cast to see if there are any stray marks, extra votes on a ballot, etc., so that they can disqualify it from the final count.

Buerkle was shocked by this and posted these words in a statement on her website, “The only path to ‘victory’ for Dan Maffei is to throw out hundreds, if not thousands of legally-cast, eligible ballots from the very people he claims to represent in Congress.”

This was not the only thing she did. She decided to also have supporters from her campaign oversee each ballot being checked to make sure each vote was being dealt with fairly so that people wouldn’t have their vote unfairly disenfranchised by Maffei.

This election, Maffei used some questionable techniques to try and get votes. However they did not pay off. As the final absentee ballots were being counted, it became a “mathematical certainty” that he could not win the overall vote count, even if he received all 300 of the questionable ballots both he and Buekle felt need needed reviewing. On November 23^rd, Maffei conceded the House seat to Republican Ann Marie Buerkle.

Ann Marie Buerkle, the new representative for New york's 25th district

In his concession statement, Maffei said, “I make no apologies, except to my friends, supporters, and staff for the fact the final outcome was not what we wanted. I congratulate Congresswoman-elect Buerkle and her supporters and family. I wish her luck in the new Republican majority. I made it to Congress – my dream – because of all the great Upstate New Yorkers who, like me, care so deeply about our future. And while the dream was short-lived, my gratitude is eternal.”

Shortly after the Concession was made, Buerkle stated, “He was very gracious. I thanked him for his service to the district. We didn’t agree on many issues, but he worked hard and I think he represented the district as best as he could.”

Buerkle will be the first woman ever elected to the House to represent Central New York’s 25th Congressional District. She won by a total of 104,374 votes to Maffei’s 103,807- a margin of 561 votes. (and less than 1% of the overall vote count)