Charter group seeking recount
Organization wants votes impounded and a review of ballot canvassing and voting machine operations
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Charter reform advocates are seeking a court-ordered impoundment and recount of all ballots from the Nov. 7 election.
The vote was so close that a legal challenge is likely, said Gordon Boyd, a Charter Review Commission officer.
The commission wants to have all ballots counted before the vote becomes official. More than 8,900 ballots were cast and those opposed to changing the charter have a 10-vote lead, 4,458 to 4,448.
“There are a couple of principal concerns that we believe can be addressed only with the supervision of the court, requiring, basically, a hand recount of all ballots,” Boyd said in an email to reform supporters. “After everything we’ve done together, battling the forces of the status quo to a virtual draw, we will leave no stone unturned in determining with utmost certainty that the election results are valid.”
But Richard Sellers, leader of the anti-charter reform group, SUCCESS, said, “We are not aware of any reason a recount would be necessary.”
Saratoga County Board of Elections plans to certify election results by next week before sending them to the state’s board for final certification in mid-December.
On Monday, upon advice from counsel, the commission filed a Freedom of Information
request with the county Board of Elections for all ballots, paper and machine, plus the .TIF (tagged image) files from scanner machines. The request also seeks other material and records pertinent to determining the accuracy of the vote’s outcome.
As of Friday, the Board of Elections had not responded to the commission’s request, Boyd said.
In addition to impounding ballots, the commission is seeking a review of ballot canvassing and voting machine operations.
“If the court grants our motion, the order will allow us to review every vote that was cast and to make sure that the counting has been accurate,” Boyd said.
He said an unknown number of ballots were rejected by the machines at polling places. These were supposedly set aside and reserved by the election inspectors, then returned to the Board of Elections along with other materials, Boyd said.
“How many were there?” he said. “Was the hand count of these ballots accurate? We have not seen them yet, so we cannot be sure whether the ‘Yes’ margin among those ballots was five, as reported by the board, or some other number.”
TIF files are the digital record of all ballots that were inserted into the machine and tallied.
“How accurate was the count?” Boyd said. “Scanner machines are certified based on a certain statistical error rate. Even if the error rate is quite small, it could be that our minus-10 vote margin is really plus-10. Furthermore, machines that are now several years old are likely to produce more errors than would new ones.”
The current charter, under the commission form of government, has an elected mayor and four elected commissioners who serve as members of the city council and supervisors of specific departments.
The proposed charter called for a council-manager form of government, which would include a seven-member council that solely acts in a legislative capacity, and an appointed city manager who would run the day-to-day operations of city hall.