The election was a tough loss for New York Democrats, as state Senate Democrats may have failed to pick up any additional seats. But the fight is not over quite yet. Zack Fink filed the following report.
It's labor-intensive work in a Nassau County warehouse, where Board of Elections workers are meticulously combing through absentee ballots to determine which ones should be opened and counted.
"They look at a number of factors on each one as to whether the signature matches what is on file here at the Board of Elections, whether they are properly allowed to have voted by absentee ballot," said David Gugerty of the Nassau County Board of Elections.
A lot is at stake, since Senate Republicans hold the slimmest of majorities, controlling the chamber by just one vote. Ballots are being counted for the eighth Senate district.
"That race is John Brooks. He is running against the Republican incumbent. He was ahead on election night on 33 votes. And what we have seen already on the first day of counting is, he is doing better on the absentee ballots than he was doing on election night," said state Senator Michael Gianaris of Queens.
Another race that is also considered close is in the fifth Senate district, where ballots will also have to be counted.
But the state Senate is a complicated place where the majority doesn't always rule. Right now, there are 31 elected Democrats in the chamber by party, and 32 Republicans. But if you break it down by factions, you have 23 mainline Democrats, seven breakaway Democrats, 32 Republicans and Simcha Felder, a Democrat who conferences with Republicans and said this week he intends to continue with them.
For Democrats to win control, they would have to win one of the recount seats and Felder would have to come back. The other hope would be to win both disputed seats, which may be tough.
"In the Senate, nothing is written in stone. That's what we have learned over the last seven years," Gianaris said. "It's disappointing at a time when we don't even know what the composition of the Senate is going to be."
Democrats don't have a lot to grab on to here. This was supposed to be the year they won back control of the state Senate. Assuming they cannot flip two or even one of these races, they have to hope 2018 is a backlash year against Donald Trump that works in their favor.