If you’ve ever thought your vote didn’t count, or there’s no point in going to the polls, Monday’s recount of the Wilton Board of Finance race just proved you very wrong. What started as a six vote separation in the initial results after last week’s municipal election narrowed to a four vote difference after the recount. And while it may not have changed the outcome, it still demonstrates how critical each voter is.
With three BOF seats to fill and five candidates who ran, the results showed that the third highest vote getter, Prasad Iyer (R) initially won 2,542 votes, and the next candidate, David Tatkow (D) received 2,536 votes — just a mere six votes separating them.
After the recount, those totals changed to 2,544 for Iyer and 2,540 for Tatkow — with each candidate picking up new votes, but not enough to make the difference for Tatkow.
Wilton’s Registrars of Voters conducted the recount following Connecticut state statues, which allow for a recount if the difference between a winning candidate and a defeated candidate is 20 votes or less.
Following precise steps, each of which required one Democratic and one Republican election recount official, all ballots cast in the election were re-examined by hand, one by one, to determine whether the markings for the BOF race were sufficiently clear to be read by the voting tabulator machine.
Ballots determined to be sufficiently clear to be read by both recount officials were processed through the machine for tabulation.
Any ballot found to have an error, unclear voting mark or defect was set aside for hand counting. Examples of ballots that likely could not be picked up by the tabulator included those with ovals not filled in sufficiently enough, or one showing a voter had ‘corrected’ a mistakenly filled-in oval by crossing it out and filling in another oval.
Head moderator Kim Nabulsi shows examples of a ballot with votes that a tabulator machine would not be able to determine and would reject; just ballots required hand counting by humans to determine the voter’s intent. Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton 
A ballot showing examples of votes that a tabulator machine would not be able to determine and would reject; just ballots required hand counting by humans to determine the voter’s intent. Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton 
Voting officials take the oath before recounting of ballots in the Bd. of Finance race began Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton 
Head moderator Kim Nabulsi instructs the officials recounting ballots Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton 
Head moderator Kim Nabulsi cuts the security tie on a bag holding ballots from one Wilton voting precinct Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton 
One Democrat and one Republican voting official worked together to verify votes during the recount Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton 
At each table one Democrat and one Republican voting official worked together to verify votes during the recount Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton 
At each table one Democrat and one Republican voting official worked together to verify votes during the recount. Both the Republican and Democratic Town Committees sent representatives to observe the counting Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton 
Head moderator Kim Nabulsi would make the final call on any ballot for which the recount officials could not determine voter intent Credit: GOOD Morning Wilton
Any ballot that either of the two opposing party officials believed had marks that could not be read by a tabulating machine, was examined by the two officials to see if they could determine voter intent.
If they could not agree on voter intent, the head moderator — in Wilton’s case, Kim Nabulsi — made the final decision regarding the voter’s intention.
Tatkow sent a statement Monday evening congratulating the three candidates elected to the Board — in addition to Iyer, Tim Burch (D) and Rudy Escalante (R) — and thanking everyone who supported his campaign.
“While I am of course disappointed that I will not be able to join the Board myself, the extremely close result shows that many in Wilton are passionate about the issues that were raised during the campaign. The importance of coming to vote for municipal elections could not have been more strongly demonstrated this time around given the razor-thin margin,” Tatkow wrote, adding, “My hope is that the new Board of Finance will establish a transparent communication channel with the community where both the cost and service tradeoffs of budget decisions are made clear to all, and that feedback from disparate sources is genuinely considered in the decision making.”
