Stern Trails Silvestri In NY Assembly 10; Absentees Not Counted

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY — Incumbent New York state Assemblyman Steve Stern, a Democrat, trails his Republican challenger, Jamie Silvestri, in the 10th Assembly District following Election Day. However, thousands of absentee ballots are yet to be counted.

Stern is confident in a come-from-behind victory over Silvestri once all votes are counted. Silvestri currently has 24,189 votes to Stern's 24,104.

"I want to thank all of my supporters," he said in a statement to Patch. "This is currently a very tight race. We knew going in that votes on Election Night would be close. There are thousands of absentee ballots still waiting to be counted. We are confident that when counting the votes is completed, that we will continue to proudly represent our community."

Silvestri did not respond to Patch's request for comment.

There are 15,181 absentee ballots that were received, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections. Of those, 7,854 are Democrat, 2,943 are Republican, 119 are Conservative, 484 are Independent and 3,725 are blank.

The board expects to start counting absentee ballots next Tuesday — after it has had the opportunity to remove the absentee ballots of those voters who also cast a ballot on a machine and compare the signatures, as well as have bipartisan teams compare the signatures on the oath envelopes to the voter’s signatures on file.

The votes tallied Tuesday included all early votes and ballots cast on Election Day but did not include absentee ballots received so far, said Peter McGreevy, Southold Republican Committee Chair.

The 10th district covers Huntington, South Huntington, Huntington Station, Huntington Bay, Cold Spring Harbor, Lloyd Harbor, Dix Hills, West Hills, Melville, and part of East Farmingdale.