Recount affirms Waltham results

Rando still 22 votes short of school board

By Denise Dube, Globe Correspondent, 11/29/2001

ALTHAM - When it was all said and done, Waltham's election results remain as they were on Nov. 6.

A recount, requested by Stephen Rando, the School Committee candidate who lost the election to Robert Cincotta, came in Monday afternoon just as it had on Election Day: 3,138 votes for Rando and 3,160 for Robert Cincotta - a 22-vote difference.

''It was right back where it started,'' city clerk Rosario ''Russ'' Malone said of Monday's daylong recount.

Throughout the day, traveling from precinct to precinct, Malone was followed by two other registrars, two wardens, two clerks, representatives from Rando's camp, a representative from School Committee candidate Michael O'Halloran's winning camp, School Committee members and successful candidates Robert Cincotta and Margaret Donnelly, and incumbent Richard Monahan, who lost his seat in the election.

''It was really an education to see how that's done,'' Rando said of the process. ''It's very, very thorough. They double-read off the numbers to make sure they are accurate. They check the machine numbers against a protective counter. They are just very careful.''

The only difference Malone found was in the absentee ballots. Cincotta, he said, picked up a vote, then lost another.

''The machines were right on the money,'' he said.

Had those machines been the only means of voting, Rando would have won the battle. By the time the entourage made its way through the last machine and Malone added up the numbers, Rando was ahead by 10 votes. It was only when the absentee ballots were counted that the 22-vote difference surfaced.

Rando, principal of the Jonathan Bright Elementary School, filed his recount request Nov. 16, two hours before the 5 p.m. deadline. To do that, he needed 10 signatures from each of the nine wards. All had to be certified voters, and one of the 10 signatures required notarization.

Malone set the recount date for Nov. 26 and arrived at City Hall last Monday about 6:50 a.m. prepared for a citywide counting marathon.

First, he reread the regulations and rules of a recount. At 9:15 a.m. he set out for the first of the city's 18 precincts in all nine wards.

At each precinct, assistant clerk Kevin Ritcey and two people from the building department pulled out the stored machines so that Malone could read the numbers on the back of each one.

''We did 18 precincts in four hours. The rest of the time was with absentee ballots,'' Malone said. ''It was a perfect recount. It ended up where it was.''

By the end of the day, Rando agreed and signed off on the final count. City Council members did the same at Monday night's meeting. ''I'm comfortable with the results,'' Rando said Tuesday morning. ''It was the absentee ballots that did me in, in the end.''

Although Rando lost, he did get a first-hand lesson in the process. ''Russ Malone and his staff, they were very accommodating and thorough. Even at the very end. It was a pleasure working with them,'' he said.

And, Rando said, this is probably not the end of his political aspirations. He expects to have his name on the School Committee ballot in two years.

With a 22-vote difference, ''I'd be foolish not to,'' he said.

This story ran on page W2 of the Boston Globe on 11/29/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.