Schenectady mayor's race still too close to call

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathleen Moore

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Another day of counting has concluded in the Schenectady mayor’s race, and it has turned the race into a nail-biter.

All week, attorneys for Roger Hull, of the Alliance Party and Acting Mayor Gary McCarthy, the Democratic candidate, have been waiting to get to election district 29, which had 75 mail-in ballots. That’s ten times the number that were filed in most districts.

The Democrats were hoping the ballots were mainly for McCarthy, which could have allowed him to pull so far ahead of Hull that he could declare victory. Hull’s team, meanwhile, hoped Hull had managed to win over enough senior citizens to keep the race tight.

After two tense hours of ballot inspection, the envelopes were opened at 5:30 p.m.

Democrats were stunned when Hull wound up with precisely the same number of votes as McCarthy.

That didn’t help Hull win any ground — McCarthy finished the day 65 votes ahead — but the surprising results kept him in the race.

Attorneys expect to finish the ballot count Monday, but they now predict the race will be so close that they will have to go to court to decide a winner. If the race is very close, a judge will have to rule on whether to open ballots that attorneys objected to on various technicalities.