Allan Appel Photo
(l-r) Adam Marchand and Michael Slattery.
A recount of the Ward 25 Democratic Primary aldermanic elections produced identical results to Tuesday night’s count: 459 for Adam Marchand and 440 for Michael Slattery. Since no other candidates are running in the November general election, that assures the labor-backed candidate will become the Westville ward’s new representative.
At 2:05 p.m. Friday chief city election moderator Jonathan Einhorn, himself a past Ward 25 alderman, swore in five official ballot counters, some of whom had received official summonses to appear. Then the process of counting each ballot, machine and absentee, by hand commenced.
Watching in the drab below-ground meeting room of the 200 Orange St. government building were a half-dozen friends of the candidates, who like the candidates were calm and interested more in process than in partisanship.
Deputy Town Clerk Sally Brown & Chief Moderator Jonathan Einhorn
An hour later Einhorn declared the recount of the machine cast ballots and the absentees complete, confirming the original count.
The recount was mandated by law because the difference between Marchand and Slattery was less than 20.
Throughout the hour-long proceedings, the two candidates displayed the amity that characterized their race. They sat at the same table, complimented each other on the tone of their respective campaigns, and praised the civic involvement of Westvillians.
They both said that in effect the ward was the true winner.
At 2:10 Einhorn invited anybody in the audience to come and watch, look over the shoulders of the counters, or ask questions.
After the sealed duffel bag was broken by absentee ballot moderator Frank DelVecchio, the ballots were separated into Slattery and Marchand piles, in groups of ten. Under Einhorn’s watchful eye, DelVecchio made sure the piles were in groups of ten at a zigzag angle.
Then the crew began counting the machine ballots.
At 2:37 a slight glitch occurred. Counters Julia Melbourne and Kathleen DelVecchio had come up with 445 machine ballots for Marchand, when there were supposed to be 446.
Ballot reconunters Julia Melbourne & Bruce Fichandler.
One was missing. “It won’t make a difference in the result,” Einhorn said, but he ordered the ballots counted again.
As the counters recommenced their task, checking their piles of ten to see if two had clung together, DelVecchio solved the problem. One ballot had got caught in the seam of the duffel. After he extracted it, Einhorn stood formally in front of the small group and said, “We are happy to report the computer knew what it was doing.”
Then the absentee ballots were counted. They all checked out.
After the results were announced the candidates shook hands and talked about working together on two pressing issues: traffic calming/complete streets and increasing the number of block watches in Westville.
“I’m really excited that the process worked,” Marchand said. “The openness builds confidence in democracy.”
He congratulated Slattery because hand-in-hand the two of them produced results that made Westville “still the reigning champion in turnout. We did it together,” the winner declared. Ward 25 had the city’s highest turnout in Tuesday’s citywide Democratic primaries.
Slattery — who joked rhetorically as he walked in that he was going through one of the stages of grief, but he wasn’t sure which one — said that he had not expected a change in the result.
“It’s a small shame Adam couldn’t have his day on election day. That’s my only regret,” Slattery said.
Einhorn had opened the proceedings by saying, “This is a terrific part of the process. You two, keep it up.”
He closed by shaking Slattery’s hand and then Marchand’s. To Marchand, he said, “Enjoy your term. Stay active in politics.”
Deja Vu All Over Again
Einhorn jokes with Fichandler about the summons he received.
A civil and criminal attorney, Einhorn, a Republican, served as the 25th Ward’s alderman between 1976 and 1991. He since has been on many boards and commissions, most recently as a police commissioner. For more than a decade he has also been the chief elections moderator for the city.
The city should be able to put paper ballots in the machine and have it count them again automatically, he said. But to do so, given the current software, would erase the memory card in the machine, “and we don’t want to do this,” he said in an interview before the recount.
There is software to do so, but it’s at the Secretary of State’s office, not in the ward.
“A kid with a sixth grade computer education could figure this out. But this is the state of Connecticut,” Einhorn said.
In some wards you can get elected alderman with 40 votes, he said. “Just bring your friends and family” to the polling place.
Candidates with Democratic Registrar of Voters Sharon Ferrucci.
Not so in the 25th, consistently the highest-voting ward or one of the highest-voting wards in the city. Einhorn attributed the high turnout in that Westville ward to its inhabitants, “a lot of intelligent, independent-minded people, a ward that produces a lot of leaders for the city.”
In his days as an alderman, any recounts were conducted on site at the polling place, Edgewood School in the case of the 25th Ward.
It was moved downtown, because state statutes require city officials to attend, and it was just easier, Einhorn said.
The recount was not done by volunteers. Einhorn and ballot re-counters are paid for their time. Democratic Registrar of Voters Sharon Ferrucci estimated the total cost for the recount to be “a few hundred dollars. This is easy.”
Republican Einhorn said, “It’s a Democratic primary but we all pay.”
For the full 31-page “Recanvass Procedure Manual,” by which rules Einhorn was abiding, click here on the Secretary of State’s website.