Uncontested Local Races Upstaged By State, National Election Hoopla

By John Voket

Armed with ballots marked up by pen, Newtown voters queued up at optical scanners instead of lining up to pull the levers on refrigerator-sized mechanical voting machines on Election Day. Newtown was among 25 Connecticut municipalities piloting new voting technology that will be implemented statewide by next November to comply with federal legislation.

And according to local registrars and poll workers across Newtown’s four voting districts, the mantra most voters recited upon casting their ballots with the new system: “…that was easy!”

It could have been the same mantra Democrats nationwide chanted as the party decisively took power in Washington, D.C., with at least 27 GOP seats turning over to shift the majority in Congress. That shift was reinforced as Nancy Johnson, the longest serving Congressional representative in Connecticut history, was swept out of office on Election Day by Democrat Chris Murphy.

According to an Associated Press report, Rep Johnson seemed conciliatory after a race marked by negative campaign ads that characterized her opponent Mr Murphy as soft on drug dealers and sex predators.

“This election was a fight between experience and change and change won,” Ms Johnson told supporters in Plainville. “You see what’s happening across the country. The president’s not very popular. There’s a lot of misunderstanding and concern about the war. It really wasn’t about my record. It was really about change.”

Ms Johnson, 71, ran a tough-on-terror campaign and touted her co-authorship of the Medicare prescription drug legislation. She had accused Mr Murphy of raising taxes and voting to lessen penalties for drug dealers.

Mr Murphy, 33, has slammed Ms Johnson for her support of the war and taking contributions from drug companies. He also blamed her for co-authoring Medicare prescription drug legislation that many senior citizens found confusing. He garnered about 30,000 more votes, drawing 56 percent to Ms Johnson’s 44 percent with 98 percent of precincts in early Wednesday.

“People don’t want their lives governed by fear,” Mr Murphy said. “They want their lives governed by hope. The voters in the Fifth District cast an unmistakable vote for hope.”

The national Democratic influence may be fortified further depending on a recount outcome in Connecticut’s Second District, as the margin of victory between Republican incumbent Rob Simmons and Democratic challenger Joe Courtney came down to 167 votes. On Thursday morning, Mr Courtney was declaring himself the winner.

A recount must be completed by November 17. State law requires a recount when the difference between the two candidates is less than one-half of one percent of the total votes cast and the difference is no more than 2,000 votes.

On the national front, Democrats won a cliffhanger race in Montana Wednesday that took them to the brink of control of the Senate. With Democrats now assured of 50 Senate seats, the battle for outright control came down to Virginia, where the party’s candidate, Jim Webb, held a small lead.

Joe-mentum Wins         The Day

After serving as a lightning rod and bringing international media attention to Newtown earlier this year by marching in the town’s Labor Day Parade after being “uninvited” by local Democrats, incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman won the day by a decisive ten-point margin statewide. Locally, his popularity was evident as Sen Lieberman trounced Greenwich multimillionaire businessman Ned Lamont by an almost two-to-one margin.

Local voters played a greater role in the national election picture because state office holders were not challenged, or in the case of Newtown GOP Rep Julia Wasserman, challenged by a minor party candidate. As the final votes were announced at about 12:30 am Wednesday morning by Town Clerk Cindy Simon, Rep Wasserman’s 5,831 votes dwarfed Working Families Party candidate Stacey Zimmerman’s support by 974 local voters.

Rep Wasserman received 921 additional votes after being cross endorsed by the Independent Party.

In the southerly District 3-2, DebraLee Hovey (R-112) received 815 votes in her unopposed race, while state Republican Senator John McKinney received 7,008 votes with no opponent on the ballot. The only other unopposed office in Newtown was for Probate Judge, and Margot S. Hall was returned to that post with 7,201 votes.

Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell retained her office statewide by more than a 300,000-vote margin over challenger and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano. Locally, Gov Rell swept past her opponent by a 8,133 to 2,382-vote margin.

Local voters also resoundingly endorsed incumbent state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Comptroller Nancy Wyman, Treasurer Denise Nappier, and Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz. It was Ms Bysiewicz who was instrumental in determining Newtown would be among the 25 communities statewide to test a new optical scanning technology as part of Connecticut’s compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

Local registrars Karen Aurelia and LeReine Frampton, their staff, and dozens of poll workers toiled in recent weeks to ensure the transition to voting by hand in privacy booths with ballots that fed into a faxlike scanning device would roll out smoothly. Ms Frampton also held four weekly Saturday sessions for local voters so they could practice and feel comfortable with the new system.

Their hard work was rewarded as 68 percent of local registered voters turned out, successfully completed their balloting, and left polling places expressing how easy the new system was.

“We heard hundreds of voters saying, ‘…that was easy,’ once they got through the process,” said Ms Frampton after the polls closed Tuesday evening. While the polling process went with nary a hitch, poll officials from one local precinct had to be recalled to the town clerk’s office near midnight Tuesday because they failed to sign off on the ballot results.

That snafu delayed the final voter tally until well after midnight. But once all votes were counted, officials were pleased to see that 15,881 Newtown residents exercised their constitutional privilege.