COHOES - Flanked by more than 200 supporters in front of the Ogden Mills Apartments in Cohoes, Albany County Legislator Shawn Morse kicked off his campaign for the state senate Wednesday afternoon, saying he wants to "restore integrity and effectiveness" to that institution.

Meanwhile, Senator Neil Breslin (D -Bethlehem), who is currently serving his eighth term in office, says he relishes the opportunity to win re-election.

The Republicans haven't selected a candidate yet, but a GOP official told News Channel 13 Wednesday night that they will soon have a one, even though, for all intents and purposes, the winner of the Democratic Primary between Morse and Breslin will almost certainly breeze to victory in the general election.

There are some political pundits who believe the redistricting of the 44th into Rensselaer County makes it a bit more "blue collar" which might be more friendly to Morse, a firefighter and union rep.

No doubt, Mitt Romney is happy with the results of yesterday's republican primary here in New York.

But, the extremely low turnout and the extremely high cost of the election have some officials upset.

$25 million, that was the cost to taxpayers statewide. Only about six per cent of eligible republican voters showed up to vote.  And we have three more elections this year alone

In Rensselaer County the turnout was just over 6% election inspectors had very little to do

The chairman of the Rensselaer County Legislature said yesterday's primary cost taxpayers $40,000,

The cost in Albany county $200,000 and the cost in Schenectady county $45,000 and there is still two more primaries one in June, the other in September.

This is all because state lawmakers could not agree on a single date for congressional and state races taxpayers will suffer

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Charles Schumer has introduced an amendment to protect Door to Door postal delivery to rural communities.

The current bill before the senate would have created apartment style mailboxes farther away from homes. Senator Schumer is pushing for the postal service to enact a moratorium for two years on the closure of anymore rural Post Offices.

As written the postal reform bill would have pushed the USPS to stop delivering mail to individual doors and mail boxes and instead install apartment style group boxes where all of the mail for a given street or neighborhood would be delivered.

The area post offices currently on the block are Coeymans Hollow, North Blenheim, South Bethlehem, North Hoosick, and North Hudson.