The Ontario County Board of Elections will tabulate mail-in and affidavit ballots on Tuesday to complete the process of counting votes from primary elections.
There is a lot of attention being paid to the Republican primary for District Attorney. As of Tuesday night, out of the nearly 4,300 votes cast, Jason MacBride leads incumbent DA James Ritts by 115 votes. In a statement released by Ritts Tuesday night, he said it was, “too early to concede the race, as we should wait for any standard review procedures by the Board of Elections, as well as additional Absentee Ballots to be received by mail in the coming days.”
A.J. Magnan, Ontario County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner, released this update:
“In light of continuing local interest in the results of the Republican Party Primary Election held on June 24th, the following updated information regarding the status of ballot counting is provided.
The unofficial election results released at the close of polls Tuesday evening represent the vast majority of all the ballots cast in the election. The results include the tabulation of 256 mail-in ballots received by the Board by June 22nd (13 Democratic and 244 Republican), as well as the ballots cast by in-person voters during the June 14-22 Early Voting period and June 25 Election Day.
Since June 22nd, the Board received 24 additional mail-in ballots (1 Democratic and 23 Republican). As of 3:00 pm June 27, 324 ballots mailed to county voters are not yet returned to the Board (20 Democratic and 341 Republican). The Board will continue to receive mail-in ballots through July 1st, and these ballots can be canvassed if they are postmarked on June 24, 2025, or earlier.
During in-person voting, 34 voters cast their ballots using the Affidavit Ballot, or provisional method. In accordance with NY Election Law, the Board will canvass these ballots on Monday, June 30th, and only those ballots cast by voters eligible to have voted in the Primary Election will be accepted for counting into the final election results.
Final tabulation of mail-in and affidavit ballots is expected to occur on Tuesday (July 1st). Once all remaining post-election testing and audits are completed, the Board will officially certify the results of the Primary Election.
For those contests with very low margins (where the difference between the winning and losing candidates is less than 0.5% of the votes cast or 20 votes), NY Election Law §9-208 required a complete manual recount of all the ballots cast in that contest. These recounts will be scheduled during the week of July 14th and completed by a bipartisan team of election inspectors who will tally the ballots by hand.
The Board recognizes public interest in the outcomes of these election contests and the entire staff is working diligently to complete mandated post-election reviews, testing and audits as quickly as possible. We appreciate the public’s patience as we complete this process.”
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