On the day we lost five votes at the Ipswich recount, cutting our lead to just four, we were also on our way to losing five more in Rowley. After the hand recount showed no change in the election results there were “spoiled” ballots that my opponent’s lawyers wanted to look at.
It’s important to point out that most of our recounts were run by the very capable Lauren Goldberg from KP Law. Lauren is one of the most knowledgeable people around when it comes to voting and election laws, and she runs a very organized recount where the rules and laws are very clear. Most importantly, she makes sure that these rules are consistent for each recount in every town. One of these rules is that we are allowed to look at “spoiled” ballots but not allowed to count them towards the election.
A spoiled ballot is one that is put aside and not counted, either because a voter made a mistake on it and demanded a new ballot, or because the voting machine spit it out for being unable to read it. If a voter fills out the wrong circle in a race he’s allowed to give it to an election worker and get a new ballot while the old ballot gets “spoiled” written across it in red ink. Every town had a pile of spoiled ballots and while we all looked at them we did not count them towards the race in any other town.
In Rowley the recount was run by Trudy Reid who was deputized into that position for the recount. During a conversation with my sister, Sandra Capo, Reid actually admitted to her that she did not like Republicans. She told Sandra that she left the Town Clerk job in North Andover because she could not stand working with the Republicans there. This may explain why she allowed five spoiled ballots to be counted, every one of them for my Democrat opponent, Kristin Kassner.
The lawyers were very shrewd to do this after a very long day, when everyone wanted to go home. They counted just these five spoiled ballots out of a much larger pile of them, and they all went to Kassner. Our team was unable to get them to look at the rest of the pile in Rowley, or the spoiled ballots in any other town.
Here is the story, as told by Sandra Capo who was at the Rowley recount:
On Wednesday, December 7 the town of Rowley had their recount at the Town Hall. When I first arrived, I introduced myself as the candidate’s representative to the administrators. Kassner had one of her representatives there as well, walking around the tables inside of the taped off area, in order to observe the recounting of ballots. This was standard at the other recounts.
As soon as the recount began, I was pulled aside by the Town Counsel, and I was told I could not be on the floor because only the actual candidate was allowed in that area and Lenny chose not to be present. They wanted to know where he was, why wasn’t he at his own recount, I told them he was at the Ipswich recount which was going on simultaneously.
I explained that we sent the town prior written notice from our team about my representation and I believed that I was allowed to walk around and make sure things were handled fairly for my candidate.
They insisted I could not be there and asked me leave the area immediately, so I politely asked them again to please research their emails and the rules. I had to show them the notice and the list of our volunteers and how my name was highlighted. The Town Counsel googled the rules and eventually they agreed to allow me access to the floor.
Kassner’s representative was never questioned or asked to leave the area.
The individual in charge of the Rowley recount was a woman by the name of Trudy Reid who, according to her volunteer sticker, is currently a Town Clerk for another Massachusetts town. While the recount was in process, she was standing to the side of the room when I went over to thank her for volunteering her time to participate in the recount this week. I recognized that she was a counter in Georgetown on Monday and a counter in Newbury on Tuesday.
We started talking and she stated that she had been a town clerk for many years and had moved around to different towns. At one point she said she left a higher paying job as the Town Clerk in North Andover for a much lower paying job in a different town because she “couldn’t stand all the Republicans in that town.” To be clear, she was the lead for this recount in Rowley, the very person who was responsible for making sure everything was being handled fairly.
In the past, I have volunteered to work many elections for my own town of West Newbury and I learned from being an election day volunteer that you cannot show any bias or discriminate towards any candidate while working the polls. It was alarming to hear and a sense of foreboding settle within me.
Trudy Reid also complained that mail in ballots were a nightmare, that no town was given any instruction or leadership from the Secretary of State’s office regarding the process on how to handle all the new laws regarding mail in ballots. She repeated it several times during the day, and that citizens never bothered to volunteer on election day, that town clerks were left to figure things out themselves and they were not always sure about how to handle all the new mail in ballots pouring in at election time.
As the day wore on, after all the ballots were reviewed, there was no change in the count for either candidate. The ballot machines worked! Volunteers from both sides were packing up and everyone was getting ready to leave.
Not happy with the results, Kassner’s attorneys approached the administrators and asked for the box of spoiled ballots. It seemed strange, because in Georgetown, we were told that spoiled ballots cannot be unspoiled and counted.
Kassner’s team cherry picked the ballots in the box and chose 5 in her favor.
To be clear, there were spoiled ballots for Representative Mirra as well, but as I mentioned, we were told on Monday, by very knowledgeable attorneys, that they were not allowed to be counted.
At this point, the roped off area was no longer roped off and volunteers were lingering around the ballot area, everyone was talking at once and it started to be a little chaotic and loud. When the five spoiled mail in ballots were presented by Kassner’s team to the town, Trudy Reid immediately insisted that the Kassner votes should absolutely be counted for her that day.
We mentioned to Trudy Reid that on Monday’s recount in Georgetown, we were told by those attorneys that spoiled ballots are never allowed to be counted in a recount. She insisted they are going to count them. We also suggested that perhaps all these spoiled contested ballots should be put aside, to be determined by a judge in case of a trial. Trudy Reid, along with Kassner’s attorneys, fiercely argued against the suggestion. It was not a respectful debate, there was no clarification of laws or confidence that the decisions that were being made on the spot were legitimate, we were just told they were going to allow for spoiled ballots to be counted in favor of Kassner.
At first, they were reluctant to bring the issue to the Board of Registrars to vote, they wanted to just include the Kassner votes in the total for the day without the vote of the board. When they finally did bring it to the three officials on the board, the town didn’t allow her side to present a reasonable argument and then our side to present an argument, Trudy Reid presented the questionable Kassner mail in ballot votes to the board of electors and she then instructed the board to make a motion to allow the votes for Kassner.
There are witnesses to her instructing the board on how to vote. She did not allow or make any effort to include the Mirra spoiled mail in ballots that were in the box to be counted.
The Town argued so strongly for Kassner that at one point, I had to ask the Rowley Town Clerk if she was working for Kassner because I was sincerely confused about her role that day. She laughed at me, and said she was there representing the Town of Rowley.
The Board of Registrars had no questions, they voted the five spoiled ballots in favor of Kassner. I was stunned and frustrated by the situation, there was no clarification of their decision, just the dishonest attempt to grab votes.
Later, I asked to see the mail in ballot envelopes that were received after election night in order to compare the signatures with the appropriate voter registration cards signatures. I was strongly discouraged for requesting this information because “they are not handwriting experts” and could not be expected to verify signatures and “they just wanted to go home”.
After some persistence from me, because according to the Secretary of State’s office, it was the only opportunity we had to compare signatures, they reluctantly did bring up the voter registration signature cards from the vault. Voter envelopes for the few ballots received after election night were not produced, they were mixed in with hundreds of other mail in ballot envelopes and it would take too long to find them. It was noted by the town. Understand that we could not take pictures of envelopes or ballots, we just wanted to see if the signatures on the ballot envelopes were a close match to the registration cards.
At the end of the day, all contested ballots were then separated and stored separately so they could be considered at a higher level, we all expected this to go to trial. All towns had adopted this same process for the contested ballots. The only consolation was that once these ballots were reviewed, the truth would come out, I knew the voters would be outraged over what had happened. I was confident that good people would review the ballots and do the right thing, that the will of the voters would determine the outcome of this election and integrity would prevail. Obviously, this did not happen.
Democrats on Beacon Hill handed the seat over to Kassner without any consideration of the voters.