The race for Riverhead town supervisor may come down to mail-in, absentee and military ballots as just 21 votes separated the two candidates after election night.

A manual recount, per New York State election law, is also in play.

Democratic challenger Jerry Halpin leads incumbent Republican Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard 3,891-3,870. The current margin of victory sits at just under 0.3%.

An automatic recount is triggered in New York if the margin of victory is 20 votes or less, 0.5% or less, or less than 5,000 votes in a contest where 1 million or more ballots are cast. News 12 reached out early this morning to both the New York state and Suffolk County boards of elections.

"I'm completely patient, and I'm at peace with it," Halpin said today. "I'm actually pretty excited to go through it and see how it fleshes out."

Hubbard declined News 12's request for an on-camera interview and provided a statement instead.

"It's a tight race; 21 votes separate us," he said. "Absentee ballots have to be counted, military ballots still have to be counted and if it remains this close, we're likely headed to a recount and we are hopeful that the recount will go in our favor."

The numbers recorded so far include machine totals for in-person early voting and in-person voting on Election Day, as well as all early mail-in, absentee and military ballots received before yesterday, according to a spokesperson for the New York Board of Elections.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections will continue to count mail ballots as they arrive, which will likely decide this race. The arrival deadline for early and absentee ballots to be counted is Nov. 12 and Nov. 17 for military voters, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day, state officials said.

The story of this race may come down to voter turnout.

Roughly 7,700 people cast their ballots in the town of Riverhead, but there were about 25,000 eligible voters, according to the New York State Board of Elections.

According to data from the Suffolk County Board of Elections, this year saw a lower number of votes cast and a lower voter turnout percentage compared to 2023 and 2021, the last two times voters in Riverhead elected a town supervisor.

It may still be weeks before a winner is officially declared.