November 10, 2005 - 2:40am

2nd District

Democrats remain hopeful that a huge number of absentee ballots might help them win one more Assembly seat in the 2nd district, where Democrat James Whelan, the former Mayor of Atlantic City, defeated GOP Assemblyman Kirk Conover on Tuesday. Whelan's running mate, Damon Tyner, trails Republican incumbent Francis Blee by 2,271 votes. The Atlantic County Board of Elections will begin counting the absentee ballots at 2PM on Thursday. The Superintendent of Elections is still compiling the numbers of provisional ballots.

The unofficial absentee ballot breakdown:

Party Requested Returned

Democrat 2352 1655
Green 1 1
Independent 18 15
Republican 1019 896
Unaffiliated 2222 1283

Total: 5612 3850