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UPDATED: Thursday, Nov. 5 at 3:21 p.m.

At least three local races in Onondaga County could be decided by absentee ballots next week.

Absentee ballots will likely be the deciding factor in the race for New York’s 53rd and 50th Senate Districts and 127th Assembly District, Dustin Czarny, Democratic commissioner of the county’s board of elections, announced via Twitter on Tuesday night.

In the 53rd Senate District race, incumbent State Sen. Rachel May (D-Syracuse) holds a slight lead over Republican challenger Sam Rodgers. May has 46,794 votes cast in person ahead of or on Election Day, while Rodgers has 46,658 votes.

Out of 20,253 absentee ballots for this race, 11,204 are from Democratic voters, 3,602 are from Republican voters and 5,447 are from third-party and independent voters, according to Czarny.

May was first elected to the State Senate in 2018 after defeating longtime Democratic incumbent David Valesky, who was a member of the Independent Democratic Conference. She previously worked at Syracuse University as the coordinator of sustainability education.

Republican challenger Mark Venesky leads the 127th Assembly District race with more than 29,500 ballots cast in person on Election Day or during the early voting period. Four-time Democratic incumbent Assemblyman Al Stirpe had 28,527 votes as of Tuesday night. In that race, there are 19,523 absentee ballots, 8,681 of which are from Democratic voters and 4,717 from Republican voters. The remaining 6,125 absentee votes are affiliated with third-party or independent voters.

In the 50th Senate District race, Republican Angi Renna leads with 63,299 votes while Democrat John Mannion has 56,071 votes. The 36,077 absentee ballots for district consist of 16,589 Democratic voters and 9,165 Republican voters, according to the county board of elections. The additional 11,231 absentee ballots are from third-party or independent voters.

In the race for New York’s 24th Congressional District, Rep. John Katko (R-Camillus) declared victory over Democratic candidate Dana Balter after leading by over 55,000 votes cast in-person before and on Election Day. Of the 57,238 absentee ballots in Onondaga County, 27,793 are from Democratic voters, while Republicans returned about 12,767, according to Czarny. Even if all the Democratic-registered absentee voters cast their ballots for Balter, Katko is likely to still lead the race.

This post has been updated with the numbers for absentee ballot returns by party as of Thursday afternoon.

Published on November 4, 2020 at 6:35 pm

Contact Mira: mlberenb@syr.edu