Tom Murray is Cobleskill’s next supervisor, Tony Desmond is Schoharie County’s next sheriff, and in Richmondville, John Barlow kept his supervisor’s seat by a single vote.
Board of Elections officials and a crowd of about 30 onlookers gathered Tuesday morning in Schoharie to open absentee, military and affidavit ballots, the last of some 332 ballots not included in Election Day figures.
Final totals weren’t available at press time, but in the end, Tuesday’s count changed only Richmondville’s race, where Democrat Scott Bennett led Mr. Barlow by just two votes, 331-329, when the polls closed.
With some absentee ballots having been counted before Tuesday, Mr. Barlow went into Tuesday up by a single vote; in the end he and Mr. Bennett got another vote each.
“Talk about a close election,” Mr. Barlow said as Mr. Bennett crossed the room to congratulate him. “You did well.”
“It was a good election,” agreed Mr. Bennett. “You ran a good race.”
Mr. Desmond led Mr. Slater, the current undersheriff, by 90 votes on Election Day. Some absentee and military ballots were counted before Tuesday, and Mr. Slater had narrowed Mr. Desmond’s lead to 45.
That’s about where it stayed; unofficial totals showed Mr. Desmond won by 49.
“I was concerned with the vote being that close,” Mr. Desmond said. “It was a good campaign; I got to talk to a lot of good people.
“I’m looking forward to serving Schoharie County.”
After congratulating Mr. Desmond, Mr. Slater agreed that it was a good, clean campaign.
“It was a good race. It had to be if it came down to the last day,” Mr. Slater said.
The exchange between Mr. Murray and 24-year councilman Linda Angell was much of the same.
The two left the Board of Supervisors’ room together to talk after elections officials opened another dozen votes for Ms. Angell and 10 more for Mr. Murray.
“I lost by 10 votes,” Ms. Angell said. “It was a good, clean race. The numbers say that really, voters would have been happy with either candidate. Time to reinvent myself.”
“You were a great opponent,” Mr. Murray told her. “Stay active.”
“Always,” replied Ms. Angell.
Ms. Angell said she lost five votes before Tuesday due to a discrepancy over whether the number 4 was indeed a 9.
“But it didn’t matter in the end,” she said. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. It would just have been closer—and I would have felt worse.”