Thousands of blank ballots were cast in the Spafford and East Syracuse justice races, so the winners ended up being two men who each got fewer than 20 write-in votes.
There were no official candidates on the ballots for justice in the village of East Syracuse and the town of Spafford. Justices are local judges who decide traffic tickets and violations, criminal misdemeanors and some civil cases in local courts.
Last week, the Onondaga County Board of Elections hand counted more than 1,000ballots in the two races. Most of the ballots were blank. The election was held in November but because winning candidates received fewer than 20 ballots each, the law requires the board had to recount the ballots by hand.
A total of 30 ballots had write-in choices in Spafford and 26 in East Syracuse.
In Spafford, Jeffrey Prego was declared the winner on Monday night with 17 votes, 57% of the 30 votes cast, according to the board of elections website. The Spafford race had 1,064 blank ballots….