The Connecticut Post wants a recounting of Election Day ballots. City Attorney Mark Anastasi says that will occur “if appropriate.” I can’t wait to hear Mark’s legal version of “if appropriate.”
From Post staffer Tim Loh:
BRIDGEPORT — The Connecticut Post announced Friday its intention to conduct a full and open recount of all of the Bridgeport ballots cast for governor in the Nov. 2 election.
The recount would serve as the first audit of the city’s disputed voting totals, which were submitted to the secretary of the state’s office on Nov. 5.
The city’s handling of Election Day has attracted widespread criticism in the past two weeks, most recently when city attorneys on Monday refused to allow the secretary of the state’s office to recount the ballots itself.
“We think the people of Bridgeport — and Connecticut — deserve a clear accounting of the city’s vote for governor on Nov. 2,” said Tom Baden, Connecticut Post editor. “We’ve asked the voter registrars and the city attorney’s office, under the provisions of the state’s Freedom of Information law, to make all ballots available to us for an impartial and open recount.”
City Attorney Mark Anastasi responded Friday that his preliminary review of election law indicates the ballots should be sealed until Monday, Nov. 22. He said he planned to confer with Bridgeport Democratic Registrar Santa Ayala and Republican Registrar Joseph Borges on Monday, and expected to work out a process to make the ballots available to the newspaper “if appropriate.”
The soft sheets are those sheets checked off as the voter is set to vote. Knowing ahead of time who won’t vote or seeing who didn’t show up to vote allows the moderator and those working the soft sheets to cross off those names. Then all you have to do is stuff the ballot box with the number of ballots that equal those names from the soft sheets.
It isn’t the voters who have the power. It’s the people who control the vote who have the power.
Please explain, Bob. for those of us who don’t know what the soft sheets are. The voter check in lists should be able to be requested via Freedom of Information, and could be included in such a recount if the Post does more than just count ballots. Are you saying that the tally sheets, not the checkin sheets, would have been changed to match ballots stuffed in the hypothetical situation that stuffing occurred? What about the checkin lists?
Here is a link to the judge’s order from election night – saw it online just now.
http://www.wfsb.com/download/2010/1103/25621624.pdf
Does anybody who voted after hours know if provisional ballots were used after hours? Seems like it would be a real pain to count them, but apparently it’s in the federal HAVA law.
Having watched several audits, if this is a public process (assuming they’re able to make it happen), it will be possible to observe anomalies about how the ballots are filled in and how they’re presented that will suggest whether there are issues.
My sentiments EXACTLY @ Bob.
The recount will only count the ballots and reconcile it to the soft sheets. A well-known radio personality in Ohio said, “it isn’t the people who vote who have the power, it’s the people who count the votes who have the power”.
Meaning:….the shenanigans have already been done. The soft sheets were compromised as the illegitimate ballots were stuffed in the unprotected ballot boxes. Ergo…the # of ballots will equal (near to) the # of voters on the soft sheets that were compromised. It’s as simple as not putting a legitimate candidate’s name on an old mechanical voting booth.