Two-vote lead triggers recount in primary election in 91st constituency

The final numbers submitted to the Secretary of State’s office are 921 votes for her party-backed candidate Jennifer Pope and 919 votes for her opponent Laurie Sweet, city officials said. The difference will trigger an automatic recount of the votes.

According to the State Department, a recount must be conducted in primaries if the difference in the total number of votes cast is less than 0.5 percent.

The city’s election office is currently working to set the date, time and location for the recount and will provide details to candidates and their representatives, an official said.

The race was close all evening, with Sweet holding a narrow lead. At 9:45 p.m., Pope had to concede the race to Sweet, who declared victory at her campaign headquarters.

“The initial results showed I was down 69 votes,” Pope said. “I thought that was the final number. We had people in the registry.”

Sean Grace, chairman of the Democratic Town Committee, said Pope conceded the victory to Sweet because she felt it was the right thing to do given the obvious outcome.

But Grace, who was not involved in the vote count, and other party officials from Pope’s camp said the numbers did not add up. Part of the confusion was caused by a polling place in the city’s school board office, which has three voting precincts. One of those precincts ran out of ballots earlier in the day and voters were given photocopies. But the ballots could not be run through a machine and had to be counted by hand, city officials said.

“The numbers were wrong, which suggested there was an error,” Grace said.

It wasn’t until Pope received the final numbers from the registry shortly before midnight, which she was supposed to forward to the Secretary of State’s office, that she realized she had won. Pope remains hopeful that the numbers will be in her favor.

“I was shocked,” Pope said. “I’m excited to be the next state representative. I’m excited to get to work.”

Sweet thanked her supporters at her headquarters on Tuesday morning and celebrated what they considered a victory. She could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

“The race was an open seat,” Grace said. “It was hard fought. It felt like it was coming down to a close call, especially in the last few weeks.”

Both candidates are well-known. Pope is a member of the state’s Democratic Town Committee and Democratic Central Committee. She had the support not only of Mayor Lauren Garrett and Democratic elected officials, but also of regional Democratic state legislators.

Pope founded the Hamden Progressive Action Network in 2016 and has been working on community information sharing and civic engagement for the past eight years, according to her website. She is a clinical researcher at the Yale Cancer Center and a mother.

Sweet won the majority of votes in the race for her second term as city councilor, with the support of the Working Families Party, students and state unions.