Recount underway

By Tim Loh, Staff Writer

The Bridgeport recount is now one hour underway, but we’re still waiting on the first results.

First up: the City Hall voting district, 130-4.

According to the moderator’s report, there were 278 votes cast at City Hall out of 892 eligible voters.

The portion of that report that we’ve been able to see so far does not indicate how many votes each candidate received. What it DOES show, however, is that the machine-scanner read 174 ballots, meaning that the moderator at City Hall hand-counted 104 ballots.

City Hall started the day with 200 printed ballots, and received 150 photocopied ballots later in the day. It used all but 47 of the photocopied ballots. The district also went through 25 “spoiled,” or incorrectly filled out, ballots, which were never cast.

What that means is this: There were 350 total ballots at City Hall on Election Day that need to be accounted for. Because 47 of them were never touched and 25 of them were “spoiled,” we need to account for 278 ballots cast. (350 – 47 = 303….. 303 – 25 = 278.)

That adds up, so we’re off to a good start.

The process got underway in the early afternoon. That’s when city officials, flanked by recount volunteers and Hearst Connecticut representatives, shuttled about a dozen polling districts’ ballots to City Hall Annex.

More info to follow…

Jeff Bustraan