Nosy Neighbor: What happens when an election is thisclose?

The unofficial results for our State Assembly seat from the NYC Board of Elections show Jeannine Kiely barely eking out a victory ahead of David Siffert — the results, with 95.45 of scanners counted, is 27.61 percent to 27.24 percent — a delta of 56 votes.

The tallies as of now include votes from early voting, Election Day and any valid mail-in ballots that arrived by June 19.

The tallies do NOT include absentee, early mail, military ballots that are still rolling in (they must be postmarked by June 23 and received by the Board of Elections by June 30) or affidavit ballots — a paper ballot used when a voter’s name does not appear in the rolls at their designated polling site.

On or after Election Day, the votes will be counted within one day of receipt of a ballot and will continue daily until completed. Just to reiterate, all valid ballots canvassed, up to and including Friday, June 19, 2026, have been scanned and are included in the unofficial election night reporting, which also includes early voting results.

Then there’s another trigger: Following the completion of the canvass of ALL ballots, if the margin of victory is 20 votes or less or 0.5 percent or less, the Board of Elections will conduct a full manual recount of all ballots for that contest. The Board of Elections will have teams of bi-partisan staff conducting the re-canvass.

 

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