Valley Patriot

Missing Ballots Cause Confusion During Recount

A hundred and twenty-one missing ballots sent election workers searching the basement of City Hall today as the recount of Nunzio DiMarca and Israel Reyes was about to wrap up.

The missing ballots were discovered at 1:30pm when the manual, hand counted total number of ballots were unequal to the number of ballots counted on election night.

Councilor DiMarca and his attorney Richard D'Agastino asked for the ballot boxes to be brought up to City Council chambers, where vote counting was taking place.

Missing ballots were found at the bottom of two boxes, were hand counted and added to the total count. D'Agastino and City Clerk James McGravey then scoured the election department safe in the basement of city hall to search for any other ballots which may have been "lost" or overlooked.

"We took a very thorough look and there aren't any more ballots to count," D'Agastino said.

Councilor DiMarca said he was also concerned that 26 voters had been added to the registered voting list in the Essex Towers (D4). He said he was unsure about what kind of action he would take but added that he believes a challenge to such voters would have had to take place on election day.

The final vote tally, including the found ballots, gave DiMarca 10 more votes than reported on election night. Reyes also picked up votes (seven) which was enough to sustain Reyes as the official winner for the At Large seat.

Total After Recount

The total votes cast in the At Large race was 18,103

Devers 3676 (+20)

Parolisi 2771 (+11)

Reyes 2503 (+7)

DiMarca 2453 (+10)

Barbara Gonzalez 2015 (+8)

Dmytrow 809 (+9)

Blank 3857