By Andy Brophy

Wednesday’s audit of early voting ballots cast in the Aug. 11 primaries showed the total number of ballots recorded by machines matched the total number of ballots counted by hand by the town’s two registrars of voters.

All ballots that went through machines were counted by the machines, said Deborah Greenberg, the Democratic registrar of voters, and Maria Signore, the Republican registrar of voters.

But the registrars’ hand count of early voting ballots for gubernatorial candidates on the Democratic side showed the machines were off by one.

The discrepancy was in the number of votes received by Gov. Ned Lamont – the machines had 471, while the registrars counted 472 – and the number of votes received by Lamont’s challenger, state Rep. Josh Elliott – the machines had 66, while the registrars counted 65. A total of 538 early voting ballots were cast by Westport Democrats (one ballot was blank when it was put through a machine.)

On the Republican side, early voting ballots counted by the registrars for candidates in District 4 of the U.S. House of Representatives matched what the machines had – Michael T. Goldstein received 37 votes, while his challenger, Daniel Miressi, received 10 votes. Two ballots were blank when they were put through the machines.

Greenberg and Signore spent about 90 minutes in Town Hall hand-counting 587 early voting ballots – 49 cast by Republican voters and 538 cast by Democratic voters.

First, Greenberg and Signore separated Republican ballots, which had a red mark on top, from Democratic ballots, which had a blue mark on top. Then, they put the ballots in batches of 25 for counting.

Early voting in Westport took place from Aug. 3 through Aug. 9.

Statewide, Lamont easily won the primary, receiving 68 percent of votes compared to 32 percent for Elliott, with 99 percent of precincts reporting.

Lamont, seeking a third four-year term as governor, now faces Republican state Sen. Ryan Fazio in the Nov. 3 general election.

Districtwide, Goldstein easily defeated Miressi in the primary – 74 percent to 26 percent – and now faces U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, in the Nov. 3 general election. Himes is seeking a 10th two-year term.

Within 14 days of an election, the Secretary of State’s office chooses at random five percent of all voting precincts in Connecticut to be audited. Westport had nine categories that potentially could be audited – ballots from each of its seven voting districts; early voting; and absentee ballots.

Results of Wednesday’s audit will be sent to the Secretary of State’s office, Greenberg said.

Those observing Wednesday morning’s audit were two members of the media and Larry Kleinman, a Representative Town Meeting member from District 7.

Before the audit began, Kleinman, who was appointed to the RTM several weeks ago after longtime District 7 RTM member Jack Klinge died, said he was new to the RTM and wanted to see how the ballot audit was done.

While Wednesday’s audit was done in about 90 minutes, Greenberg said an audit of a general election could take days, in which case the registrars would enlist help from trained Westport residents.

“Because this is kind of light, we’re doing it ourselves,” she said.

Andy Brophy

Andy Brophy is an experienced Fairfield County journalist. Andy was a staff writer at The Connecticut Post for 10 years. He also wrote for the Norwalk Hour, Fairfield Minuteman, Fairfield Patch and weekly newspapers in Westport, Fairfield and Norwalk. When not reporting, Andy enjoys playing chess and listening to pianist Art Tatum. ^_.