Election 2023: Wilton to Hold Recount for Board of Finance Seat Today

This morning, Wilton’s Registrars of Voters are conducting a recount of votes cast in last week’s municipal election for the Board of Finance (BOF) race.

Connecticut state statutes allow for a recount if the difference between a winning candidate and a defeated candidate is 20 votes or less. In the case of the BOF, with three seats to fill and five candidates who ran, the difference between the third highest vote getter, Prasad Iyer (R) at 2,542 votes, and David Tatkow (D) with 2,536 votes was a mere six votes.

Connecticut election laws also require that the recount be completed within five business days of the election. Wilton Registrar of Voters Karen Birck notified GOOD Morning Wilton that the recount will take place Monday, Nov. 13 at Comstock Community Center (180 School Rd.) at 10 a.m.

Because the difference in this case was less than 20 votes, the recount — or “recanvass” in Secretary of State parlance — is automatic unless the defeated party waives the recount; for Wilton’s 2023 municipal election, the Democratic Town Committee (DTC) has opted to have the town conduct what’s called a “close vote recanvass.”

Answering a request for comment, DTC Chair Tom Dubin offered this: “Wilton is fortunate to have Karen Birck and Annalisa Stravato as registrars. We look forward to their final determination of this very close race.”

“The Democrats have the perfect right to accept the offer from the town to have a recount. They are entitled to it by law, so I’m absolutely understanding that they want to,” Republican Town Committee Chair Peter Wrampe said.

Wrampe himself was a candidate in this year’s election who ran for constable but lost by just 22 votes. He told GMW he opted to not challenge the results, considering that the next highest vote-getter was on the Republican slate with him.

“It was a no brainer, and for the benefit of the town,” Wrampe said.

But how will Monday’s recount work?

Recount Procedures

Location and Timing: The recount will take place Monday in the multipurpose room at Comstock Community Center, beginning at 10 a.m., falling within the the state’s window of time in which the recount must occur.

Observers: Recanvass procedures and activities are open for public observation, and a portion of the Comstock multipurpose room will be set aside as a viewing area for the public. GOOD Morning Wilton will also be on hand to observe.

However, members of the public will be kept separate from the recount activities, and they are prohibited from actively participating or interfering with the recount. The only person onsite with whom members of the public can address issues or raise questions is the election moderator.

Up until this year, no one — individuals or candidate representatives — could interfere, participate or communicate with recount officials, or enter the recounting area. But this year a new CT law was passed giving to the campaigns involved the right to view each ballot being recounted if they choose to, including having representatives observe the counting up close.

With the over 5,000 ballots being divided into four groups, each at a different table, that conceivably could add an additional eight people in the counting portion of the room, adding to the tension and pressure for precision.

However, the DTC’s Dubin said he didn’t plan to have extra people on hand to get so close to the recounting. “I don’t want to hold up the process by having us look at every ballot. I’m confident we can trust the checkers that the registrars coordinate.” He said he’d only want to see the ballots that the checkers question.

Procedure: The Wilton registrars will follow the procedures outlined in the CT Secretary of State’s 2012 Recanvass Procedure Manual, which we quote from below in explaining the step-by-step procedure.

Double Set of Eyes

If there’s any theme to the recanvass, it’s that there will always be two sets of eyes — one each from the Democratic and Republican parties — at every step of the way. From the moment the ballots to be recounted leave secure storage in Town Hall, through the review, counting, and verification process, two people from opposing parties will be involved.

The officials involved in the recount include the election’s head moderator; the registrars of voters; at least two official checkers of opposing political parties; at least two absentee ballot counters of opposing political parties who served at the election; and at least two ballot clerks of opposing political parties.

In this case, the head moderator of last Tuesday’s election was Kim Nabulsi. In addition to Birck, the Democratic registrar, the Republican registrar is Annalisa Stravato.

Securing the materials

All of the ballots, worksheets and tally sheets and voting machinery and equipment that were used during the original election have been secured by the registrars and the town clerk. Every element — from ballots to memory cards in tabulating machines to absentee ballot inner- and outer envelopes — was secured with seals that will be verified to have been unbroken once the recount begins.

Together, all officials will determine that the tabulator and ballot box to be used for the recount are properly tested and set. The tabulator will then be set in election mode and the machine will print an “election zero report,” to confirm that the machine is prepared properly to begin recounting for the current election.

At this point, the recanvass officials will break the seal of the ballot transfer case to begin the recount.

Recounting Ballots — Machine-readable? Errors? Marking Defects?

1. Two recanvass officials of opposing political parties will start with the absentee ballots that had been hand-counted on election day. Together, the two officials will unseal and open the envelopes with the absentee ballots and hand count the votes for the Board of Finance races.
2. Next, two recounts officials of opposing political parties will open the envelopes with election day ballots that have write-in votes. The two officials will examine the ballots for any marking errors or defects that might cause the machine to incorrectly read the ballots. They’ll be looking for improperly marked ovals, ovals not filled in, and similar marks on the ballots. If an error or defect is found — or if there is a write-in for BOF or Constable — the ballot will be set aside for hand count. All other ballots in this group will be fed into the machine to be tabulated.
3. Then, two recanvass officials of opposing political parties will examine the ballots counted by machine on election day, one by one, to determine whether the markings for the two races (BOF and Constable) are sufficiently clear to be read by the machine. Any ballots found to have an error, unclear voting mark or defect is set aside for hand counting. Ballots determined to be sufficiently clear to be read by both recanvass officials will be processed through the machine for tabulation.
4. Any ballot counted by machine on election day, which either recanvass official of opposing political parties believes has marks that cannot be read by a tabulating machine, will be examined by the two officials. If they cannot agree on voter intent, the head moderator will make the final decision regarding the voter’s intention. The Recanvass Manual includes examples of ballot markings and how they’ve been interpreted before by the CT Supreme Court to assist moderators with making that decision.