LYNN — Marven Hyppolite said he did not expect Tuesday’s recount to overturn his loss to Ward 5 Councilor Dianna Chakoutis, but he may not have anticipated that it would show he lost by a wider margin.
Chakoutis defeated Hyppolite by 576 to 521 votes after a public count conducted at the City Hall Auditorium, which was a slight change from the incumbent’s Nov. 5 election night win of 577 to 524.
“I could see if it was by five or 10 votes, but I didn’t expect it to change much,” Chakoutis said. “The new machines are very accurate.”
Hyppolite’s margin of loss increased from 53 to 55 votes after the recount. This election cycle marked his third consecutive unsuccessful bid to unseat Chakoutis.
Hyppolite said he didn’t expect any major changes, but was prompted to request a recount after he received several questions about the validity of the results from members of the community.
He said he considered the 73 blank ballots cast to be a high number in comparison to other contested races and wanted to make sure all of the votes were counted.
“This was for the community,” Hyppolite said. “There were a lot of questions. Interestingly enough, we lost three votes.”
The number of blank ballots increased to 77 following the recount, according to City Clerk and Election Commission chairwoman Janet Rowe, who said blanks result from residents who don’t fill in that portion of the ballot or who vote for both candidates.
Rowe said the slight change in results could be due to a dozen auxiliary ballots, which are ballots that were rejected from the city’s voting machines because the circles next to candidates’ names were not filled in correctly.
“Everything went very smoothly,” Rowe said. “I’m very happy with the result. I think our staff did a tremendous job. I went in confident.”
Rowe said the margin for error is “very low” with the city’s new voting machines, which cost $180,000 and were used at all 28 precincts this year for the first time.
Many times, if the count changes, it’s in favor of the winning candidate, Rowe said, adding that 53 votes is a large margin to overcome.
Recounts held in Salem and Melrose this month, for instance, were requested by candidates who lost by one and four votes respectively.
The city’s cost for the recount will be between $500 and $1,000. Three poll workers had to be hired and city officials requested a police detail, Rowe said.
The recount took more than two hours to complete and was overseen by about 20 people, including the city’s Election Commissioners, Law Department, Chakoutis, Hyppolite, and the candidates’ attorneys and observers. It was held in front of an audience of about five people.
“I’m just happy that this was all done in a public forum,” said James Wellock, assistant city solicitor. “Every vote was viewed in public.”
