Eleven polling places in seven towns will have their election results from the recent municipal primaries audited.
The Registrar of Voters in each of the 11 polling places, randomly selected Thursday by voting rights advocates, will hand count the ballots tallied by the new optical scan voting machines to see if any errors occurred. This is the first mandated audit of the new voting technology.
Last November, 20 percent of the polling places in the Congressional races were voluntarily audited. The audit found the new machines made few errors in tallying the votes. Click here to read our previous report about the November 2006 election results audit.
Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz said Thursday that the mandated audit of 10 percent of the polling places will “help build confidence in our new voting process.” She said audits like these “keep all of us honest.”
While 11 of the 93 polling places will be audited, there are another 17 polling places where mandatory recounts will be conducted in certain races. Bysiewicz said one of the recounts is in Bridgeport, but it does not involve the mayoral contest between state Rep. Christopher Caruso and state Sen. Bill Finch.
Finch has declared victory and Caruso is alleging voter irregularities, but has not filed a formal complaint with the state Elections Enforcement Commission or the Secretary of State’s office.
Caruso, in an interview with CTBob, said he’s looking at legal action for possible voter fraud. Because the margin of victory was more than 40 votes, no mandatory recount was ordered for the city of Bridgeport, Bysiewicz said.
But there was little Bysiewicz could say about the Bridgeport election results because as of Thursday afternoon her office had not received the city’s election results. They were due by 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Below is a list of the polling places that will be audited:
Harford: Sands Elementary School
Hartford: Rawson School
Hartford: Kennelly School
New Haven: Wexler-Grant School
Derby: Irving Elementary School
Bridgeport: John Winthrop School
Bridgeport: Bassick High School
Bridgeport: Central High School
East Hartford: Mayberry School
Cornwall: Town Hall
Cromwell: Cromwell Middle School