State Audits Gales Ferry's Primary Ballots

The August 14th ballots cast in District 2 were audited by the state Tuesday and if there is any doubt that the machines are the best tabulators, Registrar of Voters Hazel Gorman said Tuesday's experience should set the records straight.

"We proved to the state if they think they're (ballot machines) a better way to vote, then abolutely, unequivocally yes," said Gorman after the audit.

218 total ballots were counted by hand Tuesday and human error interfered not once, not twice, but three times. The counts were off by no more than three votes each time, which would not have changed the results, but what bugged the volunteers was that after three counts they had three different totals.

They did not give up and after the fourth count, they're final total equalled the machine's.

The machine counted 66 votes for Daria Novak. Volunteers counted 69 votes the first time, 65 votes the second time, 63 votes the third time and landed on 66 votes the fourth time.

"I'm impressed, I thought you'd give up after the second re-count," said state observer Charles Murray.

Gorman said the discrepencies were due in part to two troublesome ballots. One voter had written "X" in both circles instead of filling in one circle and another voter just made a small dot in the voting circle.

District 2 was randomly chosen to be audited after the August primary and this is the first time Ledyard has had the ballot machines audited.