Election complaint dismissed by state

CORNWALL — There was little if anything to be learned from the experience. The added stress at a trying time was certainly not helpful. And in the end, it cost the town $2,000 to deal with an election complaint filed after the Sept. 11 Democratic primary.

"The town attorney handled it. No one from town had to appear before the state election commission," First Selectman Gordon Ridgway said. "The complaint was dismissed, but it wasn’t cheap."

But he also acknowledged that Luther Weeks had every right to file his complaint. The Glastonbury resident is a self-proclaimed election watchdog and activist. The phase-in from the old mechanical voting machines to paper ballots and computerized optical scanners sparked close monitoring by Weeks and others as municipal election officials around the state dealt with the change.

Weeks chose to drop in on Cornwall because the primary for a selectman’s seat made Cornwall one of the first to use only optical scanners in an election. The town was also one of the 10 percent or more of towns to get the random audit required by state statute.

What Weeks observed was the Sept. 26 audit. In their findings, the State Elections Enforcement Commission noted the step-by-step procedure followed by the registrars and two assistants. The assistants opened the sealed cases into which scanned ballots were deposited. A manual count of all 136 ballots verified the scanner count.

As there were no discrepancies, the registrars "cleared the counter," zeroing out the optical scanner. They rescanned the ballots, replicating the primary voting.

The memory card of the tabulator used in the primary remained locked in place while election officials awaited further instructions from the secretary of the state’s office. Most election communications, including voting results, are now handled by computer. Directives are usually sent by e-mail.

During a March 12 hearing before the commission, Weeks verified the account he witnessed was the same as the one described in the hearing.

Weeks’ complaint is covered by Public Act 07-194, which the commission paraphrased as saying "any town participating in the audit shall not alter the machines or memory cards in any way, and there is a lock out order until further notice once the town was selected to participate in the audit."

The commission determined the single issue in the matter was whether or not the counters and memory cards were under a lock-out order following the audit. It was noted that Cornwall did not receive a direct order to do so.

Its conclusion seemed to bring some common sense into the matter — and maybe a little patience for a town on the upswing of the learning curve.

The commission determined that, since the audit produced no voting discrepancies, and there was no need for evidence to sort out a problem, it really didn’t matter. The case was dismissed.