KINGSTON – Two weeks after Ulster County residents visited the polls to cast their ballots, the Board of Elections is still working their way to a conclusion in the race for Ulster County's first Comptroller, while the official results for Wawarsing Town Justice have been declared.

The local Town Justice race between Republican candidate Charlie Dechon and Democratic candidate Julie Lonstein has been officially called in Dechon's favor, with a final result of 2,162 to 1,994, a difference of only 168 votes, or a 4% margin.

The Comptroller race remains as tight as ever; according to Election Commissioner Tom Turco, as of Tuesday, Republican James Quigley was up by 693 votes over Democrat Elliott Auerbach, with six towns having been counted so far, and with 14 more towns and the entire City of Kingston yet to be tackled by counters. The board has been tasked with recounting all of the votes cast at polling places on November 4 as well as the thousands of absentee ballots and affidavit votes that were not counted initially.

"Right now we're focusing on all the new affidavits and absentees that haven't been counted," said Turco on Tuesday; counting had been halted because one of the attorneys was unable to attend the counts, and therefore the process would resume the following day.

"The recounts have all been completed once, and whether we do it again or not depends on how close we are when we get the results." As to what would prompt yet another recount, Turco said that such an occurrence is somewhat subjective.

"There is no set percentage or number, it just comes down to the parties involved and the number of whatever we feel is a sufficient number of questionable issues that maybe should be looked at again."

Turco estimated somewhere between 5,800 and 5,900 votes still to be counted, and hopes that with their "aggressive plan," the board will be done by the end of the week, though it may not actually be decided until early next week.

"Unfortunately, when it comes to such a close race, four people — the two commissioners and the two deputies — work directly with the count," said Turco of the number of people involved in the counts. "The rest of the staff just assists in the areas that we need them to.

"The process is done one ballot at a time, with the representatives from each party there, and at any point during the process, any of the parties involved may challenge an envelope, a ballot, etcetera, so they have a right to look it over and decide what their feelings are on it, and then we would have to set it aside for three days, so it's a long, drawn out process."

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