Some candidates from the most recent local election, held on April 6, 2024, were surprised this week by a visit from law enforcement as notices were hand-delivered to them regarding uncounted ballots from their precincts.
According to a press release from Town Clerk, Amy Warfield, some ballots in precincts 1 and 5 went uncounted, and the number of such ballots—49 in Precinct 1 and 67 in Precinct 5—falls within the margin of victory of several Town Meeting races as well as the School Committee race. As a result, a manual tabulation will be held next Tuesday, April 30, at 2:00 PM. These candidates or their representatives can be present as the ballots are counted, and revised results will be posted by the Town Clerk. The Clerk notes that this process will only count uncounted ballots; there will not be a full recount.
The ballots were discovered during the process of certifying the election, and Warfield sought a court order as required by state law to reopen the sealed ballot boxes, a process which, according to Warfield, took much longer than expected. The Town Clerk’s office will be busy preparing for this manual tabulation but has agreed to provide further comment after the process is complete.
Note: A previous version of this article had an error in the date and time of the manual tabulation. The above time and date are correct.
