(Photo: Getty)

No surprises here. President Barack Obama and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand both emerged victorious in New York State tonight.

Although countless voters remain in line at New York City precincts, which are required to remain open for all voters who showed up before 9 p.m., the Empire State's overall preference for Democrats was still enough to overwhelm any ambiguity as to the ultimate victor.

Ms. Gillibrand, who dominated in pre-election polling and had a mammoth campaign war chest, was not expected to face a serious threat today. Her opponent, Republican attorney Wendy Long, waged an aggressive and energetic campaign, but, thanks to a lack in resources, never quite caught on. This victory will be Ms. Gillibrand's second in four years. In 2010, she won the 2-year remainder of then-Senator Hillary Clinton's term after the incumbent left to join the Obama administration.

Attention now will be paid to the downballot races, especially for the U.S. House where the redistricting process left an unusually large swath of competitive campaigns. In the New York City metropolitan area, these include the races of Long Island's Democratic incumbent, Tim Bishop, and GOP Representatives Michael Grimm and Nan Hayworth in Staten Island and the Hudson Valley respectively. Control of the New York State Senate could also potentially be in the air if Democratic candidates overperform expectations in a number of key races as well.

Nationwide, the Democratic Party has done well in U.S. Senate races so far. Connecticut's Chris Murphy, Massachusetts' Elizabeth Warren, Pennsylvania's Bob Casey and Florida's Bill Nelson have all been projected to win. In Indiana, Democrat Joe Donelly is currently leading Richard Mourdock, and, in Maine, Independent Angus King, who's expected to side with the Democrats, is the projected winner.

A photo of challenged ballots provided by Mr. Storobin's campaign

As absentee ballots were being counted today for last week's State Senate special election, both campaigns had the opportunity to challenge ballots initially ruled valid, causing those votes to be set aside for later evaluation in a fairly normal procedural process. However, in a statement blasted out this evening, the campaign of the Republican candidate, David Storobin, charged that operatives working for the Democratic candidate, Lew Fidler, were systemically gaming the count by targeting ballots with Russian names on them (Mr. Storobin is himself a Russian immigrant).

Although the total number of challenges from both side are not immediately available, it is generally true that if one campaign challenges many more ballots than the other, it creates an appearance of a larger lead than reality, which sets in when many or most of those contested ballots are confirmed to be valid and returned to the count after the uncontested votes have finished being tallied.

It's not necessarily an uncommon practice to challenge ballots seen to likely favor the opposing candidate during these types of proceedings. Even the most remote chance of having a vote for one's rival ruled invalid works to a campaign's advantage when the final margin could be just a handful of votes.

(It's also theoretically possible that the Russian-speaking community, for whatever reason, simply contained more voters whose ballots were not 100% perfect.)

However, Mr. Storobin's campaign argued that any sort of targeting against Russian voters was morally wrong and went beyond reasonableness during today's process.

"As the afternoon has progressed, a troubling pattern has emerged in the Fidler campaign's objections to absentee ballots. It has become clear that they have shifted to a tactic of ethnic exclusion, objecting to almost all of the absentee ballots from the Russian election districts and with Russian last name," Mr. Storobin's campaign spokesman, David Simpson, charged. "Dozens and dozens of Russian votes are not being counted today because of the Fidler campaign's objections to these votes."

"David Storobin strongly condemns any effort to exclude any part of the community based on ethnic bias. He is calling for every vote to be counted by the same standard so that a winner can be declared and the people od the 27th District will finally have representation in the State Senate," he concluded.

The Board of Elections only counted about half the total number of absentee and provisional ballots today, so much will still shift around before all is said is done.

Update: Mr. Fidler's campaign manager Kalman Yeger told Yossi Gestetner why their campaign challenged Mr. Storobin's votes:

"It has become clear that the Storobin team has run an illegal mail-in campaign which is not permitted in New York. We do not know the ethnicity of any voter but we do know that people who voted twice should have only one vote counted. Worse, the Board of Election discovered that many people who claimed on the absentee ballots to be permanently invalids somehow showed up to vote in person too on Election Day…"

David Storobin (Photo: Facebook)

As the first day of counting absentee votes in last week's special election to replace corrupt former State Senator Carl Kruger came to a close this evening, Republican candidate David Storobin led Democratic Lew Fidler by just 37 votes, a source familiar with the situation told The Politicker.

When the process convened for a lunch break earlier this afternoon, Mr. Storobin's lead had dropped from his Election Day total of 119 to 62.

Only 296 votes have been counted, about half of the 757 valid absentee votes when one takes into account that some valid votes were contested and placed aside for the moment. Additionally, hundreds more ballots initially ruled to be invalid are out there for both campaigns to contest, some of which are likely to be brought back into play.

The counting, which is organized by Assembly Districts overlapping with the State Senate seat in question, swung back and forth as it reaches turf favorable to each of the candidates, but has systemically favored Mr. Fidler thus far.

Bastions of support for both candidates remain to be counted, notably a heavily Orthodox Jewish Assembly District favorable to Mr. Storobin and an Assembly District directly overlapping with Mr. Fidler's current City Council district.

Regardless, the tallying looks like it's currently on track to be under the 110 vote margin threshold necessary to trigger an automatic hand recount of all of the ballots in this extremely close election.

David Storobin voting last Tuesday

At this moment, Republican candidate David Storobin has a 119 vote lead over his Democratic opponent Lew Fidler in last Tuesday's State Senate special election in Brooklyn, up one vote from yesterday, according to a source following the proceedings.

Write-in votes are currently being tabulated, but New York law does not allow write-in votes to be cast for candidates actually on the ballot, and they will not impact the margin between the two candidates.

What will affect the tally are the absentee ballots, which will start being counted next Wednesday.

The campaigns will both get a hint as to what that absentee total will contain later this afternoon when they receive a list of names and addresses of individuals who voted absentee in the election. Those can be compared to campaign contacts lists and voter registration rolls, which should be able to provide a rough estimate as to where the count will ultimately be headed.

In addition to the 757 valid absentee ballots, there are hundreds more invalid absentee ballots, some of which are likely to be successfully contested by the two campaigns. Furthermore, provisional ballots, which are usually given to voters who mistakenly think they're registered or accidentally vote from outside of the district, are unlikely to significantly affect the vote, but every little bit matters at this point.

Once all of this is said and done, which may take a while depending on how many legal roadblocks are thrown in the way of the tallying process, the magic number both campaigns have in their heads is 110, or 0.05% of the 22,000 total votes cast. If Mr. Storobin's lead falls below that number when the absentee votes are finished, there will be an automatic hand recount of all of the ballots in the race.

Needless to say, if that automatic recount happens, it might be a little while longer before either candidate enters the chambers of the State Senate as a member of that body.

Lew Fidler (Photo: Facebook)

The new margin between Republican candidate David Storobin and Democrat Lew Fidler is 118.

Although revisiting the voting machine memory sticks resulted in a slight expansion of Mr. Storobin's 120-vote lead on Election Night last Tuesday to 143, reconciling the differing reports this afternoon gave Mr. Fidler an additional 25 votes on his margin.

Counting the write-in ballots at the Board of Elections is set to begin in a few minutes, which may cause the gap to change again later today, depending on the speed the process moves forward.

Regardless, everyone following the race is most closely eyeing the 757 valid absentee ballots that will be counted next week, plus however many invalid absentee ballots will be successfully contested, to see if Mr. Fidler can ultimately overcome his deficit.

Despite this constantly changing dynamic, the Chairman of the New York State Republican Party, Ed Cox, sent out a press release congratulating Mr. Storobin on his [currently non-existent] victory.

"While this is an historic win for Senate Republicans, it is an embarrassing and devastating defeat for Senate Democrats," Mr. Cox said in the statement.

Update: The Senate Democrats responded to Mr. Cox's statement with a press release of their own:

"As much as they would like it to be so, Republican fantasies do not conform to reality. With more than 1,000 ballots left to be counted and the margin shrinking to 118, we remain optimistic that Lew Fidler will prevail in Brooklyn.

As we move into the election season, the inevitability of Democratic victories all across this state are evident to every objective observer. While I understand the Republicans' panic, it does not justify their wild and false claims.

Voters are clamoring for a progressive Senate majority that will defend working people, protect women's health and preserve our environment. Democrats will provide that for them."