Montville to Be Included in Random Audit

The Secretary of the State has announced that the most recent election results from the Town Hall Gym, District 6 in Montville will be audited.

The Montville polling place is one of 74 selected at random to be audited.

Mary Clark-Wilson, the Republican registrar of voters, said this morning that she and Lorraine Elliot, the Democrat registrar, hope to have the audit done Wednesday or Friday of this week. By law, it can be started as early as Nov. 17, and must be finished by Nov. 22.

It is up to the local registrars, Clark-Wilson said, to set the time, and get the people in place to do the hand counting. 

The law says that local registrars "... shall conduct a manual audit of the votes recorded in not less than 10 per cent of the voting districts in the state, district or municipality, whichever is applicable. Such manual audit shall be noticed in advance and be open to public observation."

The University of Connecticut will analyze the results and present them to the Secretary of the State's office and the state elections enforcement commission.

The results of audits will be analyzed by the University of Connecticut and then presented to the Secretary of the State's Office and the State Elections Enforcement Commission, and ultimately made available to the public.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz chose to audit the race for governor. The other races to be audited will be the race for attorney general, and for Connecticut state Senate. These races were chosen at random, the secretary's office announced.

The audits involve counting the ballots by hand. Clark-Wilson said the district to be counted in Montville is a small one. "I don't think there were even 50 votes cast in that district," she said.

"Auditing election results isn't just a good idea, it's absolutely essential in order to guarantee the integrity of our elections," said Secretary Bysiewicz, in the release issued by her office on Monday. "Record numbers of Connecticut residents cast ballots on November 2nd, and we don't just take the machines' word for it."

Clark-Wilson said she had no worries about the audit.

"I trust the machines," she said.