Weber's Lead Narrows In Senate District 38 Race: Reichlin-Melnick

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY — As absentee ballot counting has just begun, the Rockland County Board of Elections counted 8,451 absentee ballots Monday in the contest for the 38th State Senate District seat in Albany and the gap between the candidates narrowed considerably, according to campaign officials for Democrat Elijah Reichlin-Melnick.

The district covers Rockland County and a gerrymandered bit of Westchester, 2 miles across the Hudson River. Republican Bill Weber and Reichlin-Melnick are vying for the seat held by outgoing state Sen. David Carlucci.

After Election Day, Weber held a 3,149-vote lead over Reichlin-Melnick. Weber received 49 percent of the Rockland in-person vote to Reichlin-Melnick's 42 percent. In the Westchester sliver of the district, Reichlin-Melnick had 62 percent of the in-person votes to Weber's 30 percent.

The Rockland County Board of Elections began counting absentee ballots Monday. Reichlin-Melnick's campaign reported that the first round of 8,451 absentee ballots counted from Rockland County closed his gap to just 341 votes behind Weber.

The count is far from over. About 21,000 absentee ballots are outstanding in Rockland, and 5,000 absentee ballots remain to be counted in Westchester.

Most are from voters registered as Democrats, the Reichlin-Melnick campaign asserted.

“As I have said since Election Day, I’m incredibly confident that once all of the votes are counted, I will finish in first place,” Reichlin-Melnick said in a news release. “After seeing today’s preliminary results, I am now even more confident that we will soon be able to declare victory."

Neither the Rockland Board of Elections nor the Westchester BOE has posted any information about the process or the count on its website.

Weber, 51, is a Certified Public Accountant. He has been the CFO of a privately held company since 2000. His wife, Lisa Weber, is the acting superintendent of the Suffern Central School District.

Reichlin-Melnick, 36, is serving his second term as a Nyack Village Trustee. He is the legislative director for State Sen. James Skoufis, who represents parts of Rockland, Orange, and Ulster counties.