Votes are counted but still no resolution in Republican state committeewoman race

GOP Chairman Jim Lyons blasted city of Boston election officials, calling for their resignation after the sudden appearance of more than 120 ballots in a year-old, disputed race for a seat on the Republican State Committee.

“They didn’t count lawfully cast ballots. The system is absolutely broken, and this is the evidence. Every single member of that commission should resign immediately. Election integrity in the city of Boston is a failure,” Lyons said.

The Boston Board of Election Commissioners on Saturday conducted a recount of the race for the committee seat for the Second Suffolk District.

In the process, they found a four-fold increase in write-in ballots and came up with a result at odds with the party’s appointment to the seat.

With the recount results now in, it’s up to a judge to straighten things out.

“What does it say about the Boston Election Department that a year after certifying just 40 write-in votes spread across three candidates, today they somehow managed to ‘find’ 167 votes? This is an indication that the Boston Board of Election Commissioners is either completely incompetent, in the pocket of the Democrat Party machine, or both,”  Lyons said.

Three write-in candidates vied for the position in the March 3, 2020, election. In the initial count of 40 write-in ballots Nicaela Chinnaswamy got 25 votes; Rachel Virginia Kemp got nine; and Eleanor C. Greene got six, according to boston.gov figures. None of the candidates surpassed the 50-vote threshold to win.

On March 4, 2020, Associate Justice David  A. Deakin ordered a recount, which was supposed to be conducted within 30 days. It’s unclear why that did not happen, though the order came at the height of the pandemic.

With no one elected, the state committee held a caucus last December, nominating Greene to the position and ratifying her status the following month.

But in Saturday’s recount, election officials certified 65 votes for Chinnaswamy, 52 votes for Kemp, and 50 votes for Greene, for a total of 167 votes — a sum Lyons pointed out is “four times” higher.

“How can they miss 75% of the ballots in a very small race? It raises questions — do the Democrats control the whole election division for the Democrats? It’s outrageous,” Lyons said.

“And yet Democrats on Beacon Hill want to ram through mail-in voting? Please,” Lyons said.

Boston election officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday.

With the results in, it’s now up to the courts to decide what happens next.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3w6tMY1