The Working Families Party is cautiously optimistic that it has managed to move from Row E to Row D on the ballot after crunching the unofficial results from last Tuesday’s gubernatorial election.

“We have manually collected unofficial returns from all of New York’s lovely 62 counties, the results of which (excel attached) show the WFP pulling in 138,615 votes for Andrew Cuomo – 2,034 more than the Independence Party (currently sitting at 136,581) which experienced a large drop-off this year,” WFP spokesman Dan Levitan said in an e-mail.

“If the numbers hold, 2010 will be highest percentage share of the gubernatorial vote ever for the still-young WFP.”

“Of course, all this could change as machines are re-canvassed and paper ballots counted. (For a bit of history: The WFP gained 11,046 votes in 2006 from this process; the Independence Party gained 8,264 – despite beating the WFP by more than 35,000 votes statewide).”

The WFP got its information by contacting every single board of elections in all 62 counties.

Levitan included a spreadsheet that compares the minor parties’ raw vote totals from 2006, 2008 and 2010. The WFP’s raw vote is down in places, but on average it is down by less than the drop in turnout. Thus, Levitan said, 2010 may have been the WFP’s “best year yet by percentage of the total vote – thing that matters once you clear 50K.”

This is all pretty ironic when you consider the fact that leaders from the WFP and the Conservative Party, which appears to have done the best of all the minor parties, bumping the Independence Party from its perch on Row C, were so worried about the results of this election that they unsuccessfully sued to challenge the state Board of Elections’ so-called “double-vote” decision.

Unofficial Gov Returns 110810

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