Ken Rudin is reporting a bizarre situation in the recent New York 23rd Congressional District race. It began as a three-way race between Republican Dede Scozzafava, Democrat Bill Owens, and Conservative Doug Hoffman, for whom Sarah Palin and Fred Thompson campaigned. Scozzafava dropped out after taking a drumming from fellow Republicans over her reasonable stands on choice and same-sex marriage. Then Owens won. Maybe.

On election night, NY 23 went for Owens over Hoffman by just 5,335 votes…With 93 percent of the vote counted, Hoffman conceded, and Owens was quickly sworn in, on Friday — just in time to cast a what-turned-out-to-be-a-much-needed-vote for the Democrats’ health-care bill on Saturday night.

Now we learn that the vote count in NY 23 is not over. And not only that, the state has yet to certify the election.

The Syracuse Post-Standard’s Mark Weiner reports that a recanvassing of the votes in the 11-county district shows Owens’ lead down to 3,026 votes — 66,698 to 63,672.

And that’s not all. There are still absentee ballots to be counted. John Conklin, the communications director for the New York State Board of Elections says that 10,200 were distributed prior to the election, which includes military and overseas ballots.

Conklin sent a letter to the House Clerk last week, stating that there was no certified winner. But because Owens still had a lead and Hoffman was not challenging the results, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went ahead and had Owens sworn in.

Rudin explains that Hoffman was ahead in the three-way race, and likely only lost because Scozzafava pulled out.

Rob Ryan, the Hoffman campaign spokesman, “said the absentee ballots are likely to favor Hoffman because most were likely mailed before” Scozzafava suspended her campaign:

“For Doug to win, we needed a three-way race,” Ryan said, adding that the campaign’s internal polls showed Hoffman would win with all three candidates.

“Given the majority of these ballots are from a three-way race, we think the ballots are going to break Doug’s way,” Ryan said.

Since Owens was officially sworn in by the time he voted for health care reform, that result will stand, even if Hoffman ends up taking the seat.