DTC
For the first time in recent memory — if not hundreds of years — New Haven’s city clerk still did not have a sheet of final ward-by-ward results in hand to certify and put in the public record on the Friday after a general election.
City Clerk Michael Smart said Friday he has still not yet received that full tally from all the races in Tuesday’s election.
That tally comes from the office of the registrar of voters. The office ended up failing to tabulate all results on election night itself; the Democratic registrar, Shannel Evans, who oversees the office, finally sent her tabulation crew home at 3 a.m. and had it resume the next day. The crew finally submitted results electronically, as required by law, to the Secretary of the State’s office at 8:12 p.m. Wednesday, 20 hours after almost all other municipalities in Connecticut had done the job.
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Registrar Evans.
Evans was reached by phone Friday but hung up before she could be asked when the full list of results would be ready for the city clerk and for public review. (Click here and here and here to read accounts about some of the ways her office botched Tuesday’s election.)
It turns out the numbers are still being revised.
New Haven Democratic Party Treasurer Gwen Mills, who has been working Evans to complete the task, said new secretary of the state software — “which in the long run will provide us with faster results and accurate reporting — is making it take longer to get official results posted.” Mills predicted an official sheet should be released on Monday.
In the meantime, the Democratic Town Committee Friday released an unofficial tally of ward-by-ward results. In numerous wards, the totals have shifted, in most cases slightly, from the tally that remained in the secretary of the state’s computer system as recently as Thursday night.
The unofficial tally as of Friday appears at the top of the article. It does not include some of the detailed information — like turnout percentages and results of other races — that end up in the official report that eventually gets submitted to the clerk.
Here are the official clerk’s ward-by-ward New Haven results from the 2012 presidential election.
Here are the official clerk’s ward-by-ward New Haven results from the 2008 presidential election.
In the wake of what he called the city’s “failure” to citizens in running Tuesday’s election, New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar called this week for changing state law to have registrars of voters appointed rather than “elected” in elections when state law guarantees they win.
Lucy Gellman contributed to this story.