Newton City Councilor Greg Schwartz’ campaign filed the required petitions today at Newton City Hall to have a hand recount of the Ward 6 Councilor-at-Large race, according to City Clerk David Olson.
“My office has certified the signatures on the forms and there are the required number of signatures,” Olson wrote in an email. “At 5:30 tonight, the Election Commission will be meeting to set the date, time and location for the recount. The suggested date that will be before the Commission will be Saturday, Nov. 23, 2019 with the day beginning at 8 a.m. with the ballots being blocked into groups of 50, and the actual recount beginning at approximately 10:00 am. The location is still to be determined.”
Unofficial results from the Nov. 5 municipal election placed Schwartz 30 votes behind challenger Alicia Bowman
I am glad to see this. In my opinion, any election result this close should automatically trigger a hand re-count unless the loser concedes.
What a ridiculous, time consuming process. We hold entire elections and count the votes in a single day. Why should it take this long to do a recount?
Good news a recount is forthcoming. A 30 vote difference needs to be checked.
@Peter– Can you give the rest of us some insight into why this process takes so long?
Mike- I think they have allocated more hours than they will actually need.
They are only recounting one city-wide race. Once the counting starts it moves along.
I am interested in the results just to determine if the machines
are 100% accurate. There may be write in votes and absentee
votes. Should be fun to attend.
I viewed recounts in the 1990s where votes were reversed.
Peter Karl remembers his experience with recounts so does Amy Sangiolo. Eric McLeish a former Alderman, lost to Amy and the election commissioner lost his job.
David Olson has confirmed that the recount will be held on Saturday, November 23, 2019, beginning at 8:00 am in the cafeteria of the Cabot Elementary School.
@Colleen: That’s not correct. Yes – I beat Eric MacLeish by 12 votes but Alan remained Commissioner for several years. I think he was replaced by Peter Karg during Mayor Cohen’s administration.
Machines are not 100 percent accurate. There is always error. There’s is also the possibility of tampering. That is why Newton wisely has optical, scanned paper ballots. Machines that allow no human recount should be illegal.
Unfortunately they are not.