Nearly two weeks after Election Day, New York is having a “hanging chad” moment.

Republican and Democratic Party leaders in Washington have dispatched lawyers and staff members to help candidates in Syracuse and Suffolk County still fighting for Congressional seats, and this week both candidates vying for the Long Island seat are headed to Washington, laying claim to being the district’s officially elected representative.

Appeals for money have been sent out across the country to help in the battle. “Please rush a contribution of $5, $10 or more to help our voter protection efforts to keep the fight going,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wrote in a recent fund-raising pitch, while some of the political action committees that helped Republicans win elections are now helping pay their postelection legal bills.

While the two Congressional contests have drawn much of the attention, there is at least as much urgency on the state level, where three pivotal New York Senate races that will determine the balance of power in the chamber have not been decided.

From Long Island to Buffalo, election lawyers have been hired, judges are sorting through dueling claims of electoral wrongdoing, and election workers in some counties are training their eyes on ballots trying to discern which candidate a voter meant to choose.

One election law expert, Jerry H. Goldfeder, said the struggle over some of the disputed races “could go on for months.”

The Republican wave that toppled Democrats across the country produced many tight races, but in New York there was another wrinkle: the introduction of a computerized voting system to replace antiquated lever machines that seems to have befuddled many poll workers.

“I think the question is, what happened?” said Senator-elect Michael Gianaris, a Queens Democrat. “The old lever machines were far more reliable and faster in producing results than the optical scanners.”

On election night on Long Island, Representative Timothy H. Bishop, a Democrat, was up by 3,461 votes after workers called in results to the local board of elections and The Associated Press declared him the winner.

But within days, he was down by 383 votes to Randy Altschuler, the Republican candidate, after the results from the machines were downloaded, and The A.P. withdrew its call. Both men plan to be in Washington this week, Mr. Bishop to lobby for committee assignments and Mr. Altschuler to attend orientation sessions for new members.

“Because we are confident Congressman Bishop will win re-election when all eligible votes are counted, he will be in Washington,” said Mr. Bishop’s campaign manager, Lisa Wieber.

Mr. Altschuler’s campaign was equally certain about the outcome. “When all the votes are counted, we expect him to be the next congressman,” said Robert H. Ryan, a top campaign adviser to Mr. Altschuler. “Of course he should be a participant in the new members’ orientation.”

Mr. Gianaris left Queens two days after the Nov. 2 election to aid in the Democratic efforts in the 60th Senate District in western New York, where Senator Antoine Thompson trailed Mark Grisanti, the Republican candidate, by 597 votes, with 2,700 absentee ballots still to be counted and audits continuing of 3 percent of the voting machines in the district, which stretches across Erie and Niagara Counties.

He was still there last Friday.

“I love Buffalo,” he said. “It’s a beautiful city.”

Mr. Ryan said, “I think it’s like any new technology, when you use it for the first time — whether it be an appliance in your home or reading the numbers off a voting machine — it’s going to be confusing.”

While it is probably too early to make a definitive judgment on the optical scan machines, even some of the advocacy groups that supported them are open to having hand recounts.

“Speed is not our primary concern, accuracy is,” said Neal Rosenstein, an elections experts for the New York Public Interest Research Group. “If that means putting this in the hands of elections lawyers and poring over each ballot, it’s something I think should be done.”

Mr. Goldfeder, who served as a special counsel to Governor-elect Andrew M. Cuomo earlier in Mr. Cuomo’s tenure as attorney general, suggested that the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, should set guidelines for the various State Supreme Court judges overseeing the Senate race challenges.

Have you checked out YWN Radio yet? Click HERE to listen!

(Read More: NY Times)