Special election recount set for Dec. 16
Registrars resolve Roggeveen's allegations
BY MARY LANCASTER
Arecount of the Nov. 21 special selectman election votes naming Town Clerk Catherine Flanagan Stover as the victor by just two ballots more than were cast for contender Patty Roggeveen was set on Monday for Saturday, Dec. 16 at 8 a.m. in the high school cafeteria.

Last Wednesday, Roggeveen filed her official petition for the recount citing four allegations she maintains affected the ballot total outcome and count procedure leading to Stover's 803 votes over her 801. During a one-hour meeting of the Board of Registrars on Monday morning, those allegations were resolved. Present were registrars Janet Coffin, Carolyn Gould, David Goodman, Stover, who recused herself, and former registrar Barbara Kotalac. Selectman Michael Kopko was also in attendance.

According to Roggeveen's petition, the hand recount was requested on the grounds that irregularities in the conduct of the election and the preliminary and final counting of optical scanner-read and so called rejected ballots caused the record of such balloting to be erroneous and that a recount will affect the election results.

She wrote: "To preserve the issues for additional legal review of the election, we allege: that the initial hand count of the 70 rejected-as-unreadable ballots resulted in an adjustment to the vote tallies totaling 73, above the two vote margin that decided the election; that the subsequent count of the rejected ballots resulted in a count that was significantly different, statistically, than the voting pattern reflected in the machineread ballots; that an unauthorized person, namely the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, Whiting Willauer, was present in the secure ballot counting area and interfered with the orderly counting of the rejected ballots; that the Town Clerk, who was a candidate for the office, appears to have certified the ballot and/or caused her name to be placed at the top right corner of the ballot, and that the ballot layout deviated from the standard election ballot layout employed by the Town Clerk previously, and resulted in voter confusion over which oval corresponded with which candidate."

On Dec. 1, Assistant Town Clerk James Grieder distributed an email explaining that he should have used the word approximately when he announced the number of ballots rejected by the machine, which was an estimate given by election warden Frank Psaradelis.

Grieder listed the final election results as vetted by Psaradelis and Town Clerk Administrator Linda MacDonald as: machine total 1,929; rejected ballots with votes 73; rejected blank ballots counted as two, bringing the total rejected to 75; write-ins as one for Frank Spriggs, two for Bruce Miller, and seven with filled in bubbles but no names for a total of 10. Of candidates on the ballot, Stover received 803 votes; Roggeveen got 801; David Gray received 373; and the late Arch McColl received 15 for a grand total of 2004 ballots.

"I sincerely hope that this puts to rest any lingering concerns about procedural errors in the vote tallies, although the recount will of course be the definitive word in that regard," Grieder wrote.

According to minutes of Monday's meeting, at which Kotalac was unanimously voted to be a temporary registrar at the recount in Stover's place, the members declared that the number of all ballots matched the number of people who signed in at the polls and obtained ballots, making the 2004 an accurate, not "suspect" number. It was also resolved that in the future the town clerk's office will only announce final results, eliminating the possibility of confusion with preliminary numbers before rejected ballots are counted.

Further, having no "instant witness" to the allegation of Willauer's interference with counting, the registrars declined to make a finding; however they resolved that the town clerk's office will reinstate the practice of using bollards and chains to separate authorized and unauthorized areas for observers.

The registrars also resolved that the ballot was certified in the manner consistent with standard procedures according to state law as well as with customary and historic local practices and procedures; and that the ballot was laid out as per state law and customary and historic local practices.

Stover said on election night that because the votes were so close she would have requested a recount if Roggeveen had not, just to ensure accuracy and dismiss any suspicion of irregularities during the process.

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