In the still uncalled race for New York's 22nd Congressional District, Republican Claudia Tenney is appealing a judge's past decision, while Democrat Anthony Brindisi says he's "awaiting victory" and intends to run again in 2022 if he loses the 2020 election.

“I am hopeful that I will be certified the winner in this race for New York’s 22nd district,” Brindisi said in a statement, “And I will get right back to fighting for bipartisan solutions, making Congress work for working families, and standing up to anyone on behalf of this district. Serving this community is the honor of a lifetime. I look forward to being re-elected and stand ready to continue to serve this community for years to come.”

A Tenney court filing preserves her right to appeal a judge's December 8th decision that led to a partial recanvass and denied the Republican candidate's request to certify her as winner of the 22nd Congressional District race. 

Tenney's lawyers filed that appeal in Oswego County Supreme Court on Friday morning. Friday was expected to be the last day of judicial review of challenged ballots. 

“The filing by our team simply preserves our right to appeal in the future before the statutory deadline. It’s a routine procedural safeguard," says Tenney spokesperson Sean Kennedy.

Prior to the judge-ordered partial recanvass, Tenney led Democrat Anthony Brindisi by 12 votes. That is when her team submitted the request to certify the results. After the December 8th order was carried out, Tenney was ahead by 29 votes, going into the judicial review of the more than 2,000 challenged ballots. No new vote tallies have been released during the judicial review.

All of this started prior to Election Day. Tenney filed preemptively for judicial intervention, wanting any challenged ballots to be secured until a judge could review them and make a final decision. Shortly after Tenney filed, Brindisi cross-filed for the same. 

On November 23rd, Oswego County Supreme Court Judge Scott DelConte started reviewing challenged absentee and affidavit ballots from the eight counties that make up New York's 22nd District. Shortly into that hearing, several issues became apparent.

In court documents, Judge DelConte chastised Board of Elections officials in the district for not properly marking objections directly on ballots, but rather using unreliable systems like sticky notes and spreadsheets. On December 8th, DelConte issued the order that Tenney is now appealing.

The December 8th decision ordered the Board of Elections to fix their errors. Each Board of Elections had to schedule a day to sit down with representatives from both campaigns and go back over challenged ballots, marking down the objections correctly this time. The order also required Board of Elections to canvass ballots that had been left out of the original count, giving the campaigns a chance to object to those as well. 

The properly marked ballots were re-transported to the Oswego courthouse and review got underway on December 22nd. There were reportedly about 100 ballots left to go through at the end of the day Thursday, January 7th.