News/Campaigns

Gillibrand calls out GOP for challenging her ballot

Looks like Democrats are going to get as much mileage as they can out of Republican Jim Tedisco challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) absentee ballot. Late last night, Gillibrand penned blog post on Huffington Post with the emphatic headline: “Let My Vote and Every Vote be Counted.”

“Today the Republicans stooped to a new low by challenging my ballot,” she said. “The Republicans’ challenge is frivolous and without merit.”

As we reported Wednesday, it appears that the Tedisco camps challenge of Gillibrand’s ballot won’t hold up, according to state election officials. Tedisco’s challenge was on the grounds that Gillibrand was in the district on Election Day and therefore should have voted in person, not via absentee ballot. Gillibrand’s spokesman told The Hill that the senator was not in Columbia County, where she is registered to vote, and therefore the challenge lacks grounds.

Gillibrand only wrote about her ballot briefly in the post before blasting Republicans for dilatory tactics.

“I was proud to give Scott Murphy my full support in his campaign for Congress and I am deeply disturbed by the stalling tactics that national Republicans are using to delay the inevitable,” she wrote. “Their latest move to challenge my ballot is part of a much larger attempt to disenfranchise legal Democratic voters and delay Scott Murphy’s inevitable victory in the 20th.”

jeremy.jacobs@digital-stage.thehill.com