A few days ago, I penned a piece detailing a little talked about House race in New York. NY-22 was a battle between Republican Claudia Tenney and Democrat Anthony Brindisi. (UPDATE: That piece received an amendment after this article published. Tenney’s comms director reached out. She is apparently still up 12 votes per their information and the judge has not made a final determination on the disputed ballots).

Now, a batch of “found” ballots has been revealed, this time from Chenago County.

WOW: An attorney from Chenango County drops a bombshell with the court– 55 uncounted early votes were just found, having never been seen before.

In a congressional race separated by just 12 votes, these newly discovered early votes could make the difference #NY22 @WBNG12News pic.twitter.com/SVDwXo8tgL

— Josh Rosenblatt (@JRosenblattTV) December 1, 2020

These are early votes, which presumably favor the Democrat given typical early voting trends. That could flip the race, though the sample size is so small at only 44 ballots that anything is possible. The judge also has to determine whether to count them at all.

This is not a good look for New York. Finding ballots almost a month after the election? How is anyone supposed to have faith in an election system that operates this way? And my opinion won’t change even if these ballots help the Republican.

It’s also worth noting that Democrat states continue to have this happen almost exclusively (Arizona is the exception), perhaps not by mere chance. New York still has some precincts with only 60% reporting. Again, it’s been almost a month since the election. Now there’s a batch of “found” ballots being thrown into the mix. Expecting people to believe all of this is innocent is going to be a tough lift.

I really hope Tenney has some legal recourse here to ensure only valid votes are counted, though I have my doubts about the courts in New York. Regardless, there is no excuse for any state to still be counting votes right now. There’s certainly no excuse to be accepting ballots this far after election day. People have to be able to trust that there’s a fair system in place that operates by the book. This is not by the book. New York is already a very troubled state for a variety of reasons. Having an election system that produces this kind of chaos and possible corruption only makes things worse.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)