Additional Ballots To Be Counted
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC. BY 3.0)
Town Clerk Sue Audette announced in an email to all candidates who ran in last week’s election that she received 17 ballots that were unable to be delivered to the polls prior to closing. These ballots will be counted by a team of election workers on Monday November 8 beginning at 10 a.m. in the second floor meeting room (Town Room) in Town Hall.
The currently posted unofficial election results will be updated to include these additional tallies. The clerk’s office will also be retrieving envelopes inadvertently locked in ballot boxes from three separate precincts, documents that may include provisional ballots and/or tally sheets essential to the certification of the election.
The ballot-reading process is open to the public to observe.
The remaining ballots could be consequential in District 4 where unofficial results have Pamela Rooney defeating incumbent Councilor Evan Ross by 3 votes, 454 to 451.
Audette did not respond to inquiries from the Indy asking which precincts the 17 additional ballots represented.
Recount
Evan Ross has taken out recount petition forms from the Town Clerk’s Office. Ross has until 5 p.m. on November 12 to return his petition with 10 signatures from each precinct in his district. Following receipt of the petition it will be up to the Board of Registrars to determine when the recount can be held.
Seems like rank incompetence in the Clerk’s office. I never heard of such lapses in sixty years of voting in Amherst.
Hilda Greenbaum
Have there ever been additional, missing ballots in past elections?
Steve, I’m not sure one should expect an answer to that question. Transparency has never been a forté of our local government in Town Hall. But, it would seem that given the earlier kerfuffle over wrongly disqualified petition signatures-and I state “wrongly” as even the assistant clerk signed an affidavit attesting to such-and now this issue with “received 17 BALLOTS that were UNABLE TO BE DELIVERED TO THE POLLS PRIOR TO CLOSING” and “retrieving envelopes INADVERTENTLY LOCKED IN BALLOT BOXES from THREE separate PRECINCTS” I would think that, no matter your position on any candidate or issue, a “study” of the workings of the Clerk’s office is warranted. One can only imagine how much worse this situation might have been if Amherst had had a higher/better turnout of voters.
May we all ask for that our “missing” ballots be counted now?
Let’s also revote the ballot question too, with the clarification that such borrowing authorizations requires a 2/3 supermajority to pass.
Is it just me or does our bastion of liberalism seem like it’s getting Trumpier by the minute?
Thanks for calling attention to the missed ballots. The meeting on Monday raises some questions.