Clancy camp silent after defeat

LYNN – Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. has not filed for a vote recount following his defeat Tuesday by Judith Flanagan Kennedy but he can do so within 10 days from the closing of the polls.Clancy lost his re-election bid by 27 votes Tuesday. He refused to answer questions from the Item after announcing his defeat and his campaign staff has not returned calls regarding whether a recount is intended.”I have not been officially contacted by anybody,” City Clerk Mary Audley said Wednesday. “All the ballots and the paperwork from the election are locked up in my office for 10 days. Everything is locked up and sealed and I’m the only one with a key.”Audley, who oversees elections in Lynn, said the mayoral candidates have 10 days in which to file a recount petition with her office. The clock began ticking at 8 p.m. Tuesday when the polls closed, she said.In addition to the 27-vote difference, there are 216 blank ballots that can be challenged if a hand recount is requested, Audley said.As the election results poured in Tuesday evening, rumors swirled about as they often do. One involved Ward 5, Precinct 1, where reportedly the automated vote-counting process had stalled and reverted to a hand counting of the ballots.”That never happened, although it was reported that way on cable TV,” said Audley. “All the votes come in on memory cards and those are what I use to upload the results. On TV they said I was manually counting the ballots, but I wasn’t manually counting anything.”Another rumor had it that the vote count in one precinct had changed, when in fact a volunteer had read it wrong at a polling location. “No numbers changed. The memory card matched the slip that came in,” Audley said.According to Secretary of State William Galvin, candidates may initiate a recount by petitioning the city clerk. Candidates seeking a recount must specify in a statement on the petition why they believe the election records are erroneous and that the results could change the outcome of the election.Once a recount petition is received, the city clerk delivers it to the registrar of voters along with other materials in sealed envelopes, including absentee and challenged ballots, original tally sheets, envelopes containing spoiled or unused ballots, voting lists used at the election, certificates issued to voters omitted from the voting list and other election-related items.Presuming a recount petition is filed, the registrars must set the recount time and place, and give at least three days written notice to both Clancy and Kennedy.Galvin’s office notes that the registrars or election commissioners sit as “judges” of the protested ballots. They do not tally the vote. Rather, they appoint the number of clerks considered necessary to do the actual recounting. Some of the clerks read the ballots, others are responsible for the tally sheets. Runners bring the protested ballots to the judges.Candidates may witness the recount, accompanied by legal counsel, if desired. If a tie results among the judges, the ballot is counted as called by the ballot reader.Unless the recount petition specifies a hand count of the optical scanner ballots, the recount consists of inserting the ballots – including absentee ballots – into the vote tabulator, which must be programmed and tested in accordance with state law.Hand counting optical scanner ballots is similar to counting paper ballots – spread out on a table and tallied.When the recount is completed, the amended records stand as the true record of the election.”This is the closest race I’ve ever seen in my time here,” Audley said.