NY-22 Decided? Not So Fast, Thousands of Absentees Still Need Counting

Television networks and several others declared him the winner. And, the campaign of Democrat Anthony Brindisi has also sent a statement claiming victory. But, did he win?

At the time networks like CNN were calling Brindisi the winner on Tuesday night, he held a roughly 5,000 vote lead over incumbent Republican Claudia Tenney with some 90% of districts reporting. When the final numbers came in, though, Brindisi's lead had shrunk to 1,400. And, there are plenty of absentee and military ballots to be counted.

Syracuse.com reports there are as many as 16,000 absentee ballots that were mailed out in the 22nd district. A source tells WIBX anywhere from 12,000-14,000 of those ballots have been returned.

So is Brindisi the winner or not?

We likely won't know for at least a week. It'll take at least that long to collect the absentees and count them.

In the meantime, the Tenney camp isn't conceding. A release from her campaign on Tuesday night said it was still too close to call. ''Over the next few days and weeks our team will participate in the re-canvass process and review the absentee ballots,” said Raychel Renna, campaign manager.