In the latest updated numbers in New York’s 23rd congressional district, Democratic congressman Bill Owens leads by 3,176 votes over Conservative Doug Hoffman. It was about 5,000 votes on Election Night.

One of my readers, John, notes:

Other than the three areas where Hoffman supposedly got 0 votes, Dede only exceeded 10 percent of the total vote once (Town of Brookfield 0/1 @ 13.2 percent). She only exceeded 10 percent of Hoffman’s votes in 4 areas, Brookfield 0/1 and 0/2 and Madison 0/1 and 0/2 for 35.3 percent, 17.1 percent, 16.1 percent, and 12.9 percent).
Yet somehow she got a majority of the vote 3 times in places where Hoffman got zero? 61.2 percent in Fenner 0/1, 51.3 percent in Hamilton 0/3, and 59.2 percent in Sullivan 0/2?
I’d bet money that Dede’s votes in these areas were a total of Dede and Hoffman votes, and that Hoffman was cheated of about 500 votes (using Owens’ percentage of votes as a proxy and assuming about the same Dede/Hamilton split as in similar areas that gave Owens that percentage of votes).

The collection of absentee ballots, recanvassing and recounting will probably not result in a new winner. But they’ll make the final numbers really darn interesting — and suggest Hoffman should not have conceded when he did.