Projo Politics Blog

PROVIDENCE -- The Board of Elections finalized counting the mail ballots in the state Supreme Court-ordered recount in West Warwick's Senate District 9 Democratic primary -- between longtime incumbent Stephen D. Alves and political newcomer Michael Pinga -- giving Pinga the win by 17 votes.

The tally today left Pinga with 998 votes to Alves' 981.

The board has finished counting ballots in the state Supreme Court-ordered recount of Warwick's Senate District 31 Democratic primary between Erin Lynch and David Bennett, declaring Lynch the winner by 10 votes.

According to the official tally, Lynch received 859 votes to Bennett's 849.

Earlier, Board of Elections staff went through eight boxes -- about 2,400 ballots -- and found two missing mail ballots in the Lynch-Bennett recount.

Before lunch, the board had completed the voting machine counts, reviewed provisional and mail ballots, and found two mail ballots to be missing.

Lynch was attending this morning's recount. Angel Taveras, a lawyer for Bennett is also there.

On primary night last month, Alves, the influential chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, lost by 17 votes.

Bennett, candidate for the District 31 seat to be vacated after four decades by John C. Revens, lost by 10 votes.

The board has already recounted both races once before. The recounts upheld the original results, although the vote totals were different. Both of the apparent losing candidates appealed to the state Supreme Court, asking for new primaries.

Both court orders require recounting all provisional, mail and regular ballots cast. And the court ordered the state Board of Elections to examine any ballots rejected by the optical scanning machines to determine which candidate, if any, the voters intended to choose but failed to mark correctly.

-- With reports from Journal staff writer Talia Buford

 Tags  David Bennett Erin Lynch Michael Pringa Providence state Board of Elections Stephen D. Alves

---