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11/18/2018 11:00 PMFollowing a recount in the race for the 33rd State Senate District seat, Democrat Norman Needleman is again being called the winner by the office of the State Senate Democrats, which had attorneys in the towns where the recount took place.
Needleman’s opponent State Representative Melissa Ziobron (R-24) conceded the race in a post on Facebook Tuesday afternoon.
“Well friends...our journey has come to an end. Losing by 85 votes after being outspent over 4 to 1 is an amazing feat. I’m proud of my positive and grassroots campaign. Thank you to all you’ve been praying and sending good wishes,” Ziobron posted.
Needleman posted in part: “I want to thank all of the local officials who worked so hard to make sure every vote was counted over the last couple of days. Now that all the votes have been counted, it’s time to get to work.”
Ziobron’s communications coordinator Edward Odell said Ziobron accepted the outcome of the race.
'We Have Faith'
“We heard that the margin was 85 votes in favor of Norm, and we have no plans to contest their results,” said Odell, who was in contact with attorneys from the State Senate Republicans. “We feel the election was fairly decided. The only thing that troubled us initially was that the biggest error in the recount occurred in the opposing candidate’s hometown. But you know, Melissa has never been one to question the process. We have faith in all of the registrars in all of our towns.”
Odell said he did not have final tallies from each town in the district, but that he had heard it was a margin of 85 votes. Adam Joseph, the communications coordinator for the State Senate Democrats, also did not have a final tally, but said he had heard it was an 83-vote margin.
Late last week, the registrars of voters in Essex, where Needleman is currently a first selectman, reported to the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s Office that they had discovered a tabulation error in the results they reported following the election on Nov. 6. Essex Registrar John Heiser and a spokesman for the Secretary of the State’s Office said that it appeared as though election day registration votes and absentee ballots were counted twice for both candidates, and, in fact, for all races, not just this one, because vote totals were entered into the wrong column by the town.
Immediately following the election on Nov. 6, the vote margin was reported at 303 in Needleman’s favor. That margin shrunk to 137 following the discovery of the error last week. It appears to have shrunk to about 85 or 83 votes following the recanvass that took place over the weekend and Monday.
Heiser said the error was discovered by town officials on Nov. 14, verified the following morning, and then reported immediately to the state.
“We submitted some wrong totals,” he said.
Results Certified Next Week
The recanvass was conducted in all of the towns in the 33rd Senate District, which includes Chester, Clinton, Colchester, Deep River, East Haddam, East Hampton, Essex, Haddam, Lyme, Old Saybrook, Portland, and Westbrook. As of Monday afternoon, the Secretary of the State’s Office said it was still waiting on reports from several of the towns, and that the results likely would be certified sometime next week.
According to a letter sent last week by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill to the town clerks in the 33rd District towns, the updated vote totals last week stood at 25,387 for Needleman, and 25,250 for Ziobron, a vote total difference of 137. The unofficial results reported the day after the election, before the error was found, were 25,664 votes for Needleman and 25,361 votes for Ziobron, a margin of 303 votes. The race was too close to call on election night.
Three-term incumbent Republican Art Linares, Jr., did not seek re-election for the seat after he moved out of district.
Needleman said Wednesday that he was pleased with the outcome of the race and that he looked forward to serving all of his constituents, not just those who voted for him.
"I'm glad it's over. And I'm glad of the outcome. I'm glad the recount worked out the way it did. It was a very stressful few days," he said.
Discussing Possible Solutions to Problem
In his capacity as the first selectman of Essex, he said he has been working with other town officials to piece together what happened to create the error. "It's a complicated process, but from what I understand the same error was made in more than one town," he said. "I've had a few discussions with lawyers and the Secretary of State's office and I think that when it comes to a system like this, we go in the right direction when it comes to decentralization and making sure things are not hackable. That's the beauty of the American electoral system, you can influence opinion, but you can't hack an entire election."
On the other hand, he said, the manual step of taking the tape from the voting machines and transferring it to a spreadsheet leaves room for error. He said it makes sense for registrars to continue to work with the Secretary of State's office to make the system less susceptible to human error.
"The fact that, at the end of the election, people who have worked for 16 hours, and these are people who are doing it for virtually no pay, then they take this eight-foot long cash register-like receipt, basically, and transcribe the numbers to a spreadsheet. Well, they do the best they can. If you were looking for a statuary change to limit the problem, something to fix it right away, assuming that what happened is what we think happened, I would mandate that another person, not the original group of people, but another person, check the work in a fixed amount of time."
He said it's often true that, particularly when it comes to numbers, that when people make a mistake, they are apt to make the same mistake multiple times.
"That's the way the brain works," he said. "So put another set of eyes on it. The fact that two out of twelve towns made this mistake, is a bit troubling. All systems like this need to be designed to reduce human errors."
In terms of moving forward, he said that Linares has "very graciously" reached out to him to help him with the transition.
"Well, as soon as his wife has the baby," he said. "So, not right now. But he has offered to share information and files and whatever is needed. He's been great and I appreciate that. And I hope I can help effect change."
His top two immediate priorities will include the budget problem, and economic growth.
"We need to fix the budget and grow the economy," he said. "Budgets are non-partisan. Numbers are objective reality and you can't make them into something they are not. We need to put a lot of effort on that."