AUBURN - The Cayuga County Legislature will welcome back George Fearon in January, but only time will tell if the city will keep its current mayor.

Incumbent Fearon won in Legislature District 7 by 27 votes. He ended with nine absentee votes more than challenger Lon Fricano, who also lost one vote during the recanvassing process. It took workers four-and-a-half hours to declare Fearon the winner after wading through nearly 70 absentee ballots Tuesday.

However, the ballot inspectors only got through four of the 21 voting districts for Auburn mayor, leaving most to predict a result by the end of the week.

With only 20 percent of the results in, Michael Quill remains ahead of his two opponents with 2,951 votes, including the 38 absentee-ballot count. Quill received 42 more votes than mayor Timothy Lattimore on Election Day last week. Lattimore has 27 absentee votes for a preliminary total of 2,898 votes and David Dempsey had 11 more, boosting his preliminary total to 711.

The Cayuga County Board of Elections will count the tight races first, so Owasco and Fleming supervisors races will be counted next.

Two sets of inspectors tallied votes simultaneously, the first dedicated to the Auburn mayor's race. The second are working on the county Legislature, towns and villages races.

The workers turned the institutional green conference rooms into bingo halls as they read off the ballots with calls of “one A” or “three D as in dog.”

“It's always as tedious. It is. Even when you get to uncontested town races,” said Cherl Heary, BOE Republican commissioner.

Candidates popped in and out all day, but Fearon stayed through the entire tally for his district.

“This is an interesting process. I didn't realize it was this complex,” he said.

Fricano called his campaign a moral victory and applauded his multi-party committee for sparking discussion and political activism in District 7. The outcome was disappointing and confusing, Fricano said.

Republican leaders are involved in a lawsuit over illegal asbestos removal that occurred on his opponent's watch.

“I don't see how any taxpayer can support a regime that is suing them for their own negligence,” he said. “It's an unfortunate day when something like that can happen.”

The election suggested more people are paying attention, though, he said.

“For a political newcomer with no party affiliation to come this close to a longtime Republican in staunchly Republican territory says a lot,” Fricano said, promising this campaign would not be his last run for public office. “I feel confident there's a lot of new blood going into the county Legislature and I hope a new day is dawning.”

Fearon wasn't surprised by the tight outcome.

“Both candidates were pretty well known with signs and mailers,” he said.

However, he pledged to represent all of the district's voters, no matter what side of the fence they were on, he said. The key to this is staying in touch with his constituents, he added.

Fearon will not seek nor accept the chair position, he said.

Throughout Tuesday's process, many paper ballots didn't count. Brewster guessed the large amount of voided or rejected ballots reached a local record. He credited the large figure to duplicated ballots because the BOE had to send multiples to many voters.

“We've never thrown so many out,” inspector Mary-Jane Sanders agreed.

Ballots with signatures obviously different from those in the BOE's records were rejected, as well as those papers with wrong or omitted dates. Sanders was surprised by the amount of people who didn't follow directions, from writing their birthdays instead of the date signed to those who forgot to sign the documents altogether.

Also, political party leaders and campaign managers looked over the shoulders of the ballot inspectors voicing objections because of defaced ballots, rips, marks outside the boxes, and double-marked boxes.

Some people commented at the large amount of objections to ballots, although an objection doesn't automatically disqualify a ballot.

“I'm attempting to uphold the integrity of the electoral process,” said James Brewster of the Conservative Party. Brewster and the others are trying to make sure the count is consistent, he said.

“If he's going to object every time, I'll object (to this ballot). This is going to make me have to pay attention,” Democratic Party chair Kate Lacey said, joking with Brewster.

Staff writer Jessica Soule can be reached at 253-5311, ext. 267 or jessica.soule@lee.net