Recount of Kupchick-Drew Race Attracts Great Interest

Tuesday's recount of the race between Republican Brenda Kupchick and Democratic state Rep. Tom Drew, which saw Kupchick win by 14 votes on Election Day, has attracted a lot of interest, according to town officials.

The gymnasium at the Fairfield Senior Center, 100 Mona Terrace, is expected to include state representatives from both sides of the political aisle, elected town officials, local lawyers and political gadflys when the recount begins at 10 a.m., but the recount itself is expected to be done by early afternoon, according to the Registrar of Voters' Office in Old Town Hall.

Kupchick, a Representative Town Meeting member from District 6 and former Board of Education member, defeated Drew, a Democrat who was seeking a fourth two-year term, by 14 votes on Tuesday - 4,384 to 4,370, including absentee ballots, said Roger Autuori, the Republican registrar of voters.

Autuori said town Department of Public Works' crews brought ballots in the Kupchick-Drew race from polling locations to a portable trailer by the Fairfield Senior Center on Friday and that they had been locked in the portable ever since.

On Tuesday, the ballots will be handcounted to ensure the number of ballots matches the number on the official election returns, and the ballots will then be divided by polling location and fed through a total of six machines to verify how many ballots had votes for Kupchick and how many had votes for Drew. Autuori said the handcount would determine only the number of ballots - not who voted for whom. "It's not looking at the little dots," he said of the process to be used Tuesday.

Autuori said six machines will be used because the Kupchick-Drew race was voted on in five districts, and a separate machine will be used for absentee ballots. Some absentee ballots, Autuori said the number was about a dozen, had been spit out of the machines and had to be examined on Election Day to determine voter intent. He expected those ballots would be subject to the same examination on Tuesday.

Autuori said Carlisle Spivey was the head moderator for Tuesday's election and would be head moderator for Tuesday's recount. Twenty poll workers - half Republicans, half Democrats - will assist in the recount, Autuori said. He said he had hired the Republican poll workers and Matthew Waggner, the Democratic registrar of voters, had hired the Democratic poll workers.

Devon Pfeifer, chairman of Fairfield's Democratic Town Committee, said she wasn't concerned about the process of recounting the ballots.

"I don't have any concerns. I'm sure everyone will follow the state statutes to the letter and it will go very smoothly tomorrow [Tuesday]," she said. "Obviously, the moderator is going to run the show tomorrow and we'll see."

Pfeifer said Tuesday's recount would determine the winner of the Kupchick-Drew race and that a recount is automatic due to such a close margin-of-victory.

James Baldwin, chairman of Fairfield's Republican Town Committee, didn't return a call for comment.

James Millington, a Representative Town Meeting member from District 9 and Kupchick's campaign manager, said he believed Kupchick's lead would hold through the recount and that she would be the next state representative from the 132nd state House District.

"I'm confident that the lead that Brenda had is going to hold up," Millington said, adding that the machines were "extremely accurate" and that previous recounts of close RTM and state representative races had turned up a difference of only one or two votes.

Millington said the dozen or so absentee ballots that had been spit out by the machines on election night as unreadable had been heavily scrutinized by election officials Tuesday night.

Millington disputed Pfeifer's belief that the recount would determine the winner. "I think that Brenda won the election. We just have to go through this process as part of the procedure laid out by law," he said.

If the number of ballots matches the number of people who voted in the election, which will be the first task performed Tuesday, there shouldn't be a change in the outcome of the election, Millington said. "Once we get past that hump, I think everything will run smoothly for us," he said.

Millington said he was pleased that the date of the recount was nearly on hand and that the 2011 election had been hard fought and exhausting for candidates in both major political parties. "All of us are just waiting for closure for this election," he said. "The candidates and their staff are at the point of exhaustion. We just want to get this day over."

Patricia Jacobson, Drew's campaign manager, wasn't available Monday afternoon to comment.