April Capone Almon is the new Mayor of East Haven. She defeated Joe Maturo 4010-3985. The final tally was within 4 votes of the original tally on election night. Congratulations to April and all the vote examiners who went through 2 grueling days of recounting votes by hand. Today the tally went from 9:00 AM till almost 10:00 PM. I will add video as soon as I download it from the camera. In the next couple of days, after I have gotten a chance to rest and recuperate, I will give the long explanation of where the problems arose with the Sunday recount and what changed today to make such an accurate result possible. The short explanation is the moderator put in place some very solid recount procedures that were not in place on Sunday.
Update #1: here is the video of the result announcement and a short press conference by the new Mayor of East Haven!
Update #2: Susan Bysiewicz gives a short speech to the press and the vote examiners prior to the second recount. She and two members of her office came down. The two staff members of the SOTS office were, in the words of Secretary Bysiewicz, "going to stay with you as long as it takes to conduct this recount." That is a very strong statement by the SOTS that the East Haven recount was important and the Secretary was going to provide everything she could to make sure the recount went smoothly. However, it was not precisely true. The two members of her staff bailed sometime in the afteroon. Leaving a recount that is going smoothly seems utterly reasonable since East Haven has never had a problem with vote recounts as long as anyone could remember....except for that little problem on Sunday which resulted in East Haven spending $15,000 on a recount that was invalid. Watch Susan B for yourself:
Update #3: here is some video of the facilities used for recount #2. As you can see these facilities are so much less crowded and better lighted than the Town Hall lobby which was used for the first recount. You probably cannot tell by the video but the accoustics were better for recount #2. The Bradford Manor fire house facility has high wooden ceilings which help dissipate the noise from the examiners, partisan inspectors and the audience. The Town Hall lobby has a lot of stone on the floors and it is a substantially smaller space.
