Last House Race Could Drag for Weeks

Nearly one month after Election Day, one final undecided House race appears likely to stretch on for days - if not weeks - longer.

As the campaigns for New York Rep. Tim Bishop and Republican challenger Randy Altschuler headed to a Suffolk County courtroom on Tuesday for what an Altschuler spokesman called an "informational" meeting regarding about 2,000 challenged ballots that will decide the outcome of the race. A bipartisan election commission is expected to meet next week to pore over the contested votes.

As of Tuesday evening, Bishop held a 221-vote lead over Altschuler. The Republican picked up 13 votes earlier in the day as local election officials counted 71 military votes and both campaigns agreed to withdraw challenges on 258 ballots.

Tuesday marked the latest day of vote counting in the ongoing race for the Southampton-area seat. The fourth-term Bishop emerged with a small plurality of the vote  Nov. 2, but the race was thrown into confusion days later when voting machines altered their vote count and gave Altschuler a 383-vote lead.

Bishop regained the advantage over the last several weeks as election workers counted remaining absentee and provisional ballots around the district.

Rob Ryan, an Altschuler spokesman, said the Republican was not close to conceding the race and predicted that the outcome of the contest would not be known for weeks.

"There's going to be some serious, serious challenges going on because of residency issues," said Ryan, pointing to a Monday Fox News investigation that suggested several cases of voter registration irregularities in the race.

With other remaining outstanding races in California and Texas wrapping up prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, Republicans have gained at least 63 House seats.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this story, the word "residency" in the second-to-last paragraph was mis-transcribed as "residual."

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