A count of absentee ballots today settled a neck-and-neck Republican primary race in favor John Byrne of Cape Vincent.

He will now be the GOP candidate for the 116th District Assembly race this fall after against Democrat Addie Russell of Theresa.

After absentee ballots were added to last week’s primary, Byrne appears to have a 50-vote lead over William Sheridan of Hammond in the GOP race, 1,848 to 1,798.

One week ago, Sheridan had a slim lead of seven votes after unofficial Primary Day tallies were complete, 1,650 to 1,643.

This morning, St. Lawrence County’s absentee ballots were counted, with 91 going to Sheridan and 78 for Byrne, making the tally 1,741 to 1,721 for Sheridan, and increasing his lead to 20 votes from GOP members.

But Byrnes’ home county, Jefferson, counted the absentee ballots it had received, and that seems to have put Byrne on top with 127 more votes for Byrne and 57 more for Sheridan.

Russ Finley of Lisbon finished a distant third, with 683 votes on Primary Day, 22 absentees from Jefferson County, and an unreported number from St. Lawrence County.

The vote count appears to be complete although it is not official until the tallies are certified by the two counties’ boards of elections.

Byrne already holds the Conservative, Independence and Reform parties’ nominations.

The “River District,” now represented by Russell, includes all St. Lawrence County townships along the St. Lawrence River plus Ogdensburg, Canton, Potsdam, Rossie, Macomb, and DePeyster, and part of Jefferson County including Watertown.

Byrne lost narrowly to Russell two years ago when he held the lead until absentee ballots were counted then.