Sons of Fortune (74 page)

“The
township,” continued the
mayor,
“has 10,942 registered
voters, who reside in eleven districts. The twenty-two ballot boxes were, as
they always have been in the past, picked up a few minutes after the polls
closed, and then transferred into the safe custody of our chief of police, who
locked them up for the night.” Several people politely laughed at the mayor’s
little joke, which caused him to smile and lose his concentration. He seemed to
hesitate, until his chief of staff leaned forward and whispered in his ear,
“Ballot boxes.”

“Yes,
of course, yes. The ballot boxes were collected this morning and brought to the
town hall at nine o’clock, when I asked my chief clerk to check that the seals
had not been tampered with. He confirmed that they were all intact.” The mayor
glanced around to observe his senior officials nodding their agreement. “At ten
o’clock, I shall cut those seals, when the ballots will be removed from the
boxes and placed on the counting table in the center of the main hall. The
first count will do no more than verify how many people have cast their votes.
Once that has been established, the ballots will then be sorted into three
piles.
Those who have voted Republican, those who have voted
Democrat, and those that might be described as disputed ballots.
Though
I might add, these are rare in Madison, because for many of us, this might well
be our last chance to register a vote.” This was greeted by a little nervous
laughter, though Nat wasn’t in any doubt he meant it.

“My
final task as the election officer will be to declare the result, which in turn
will decide who is elected as the next governor of our great state.

I
hope to have completed the entire exercise by midday.” Not if we continue at
this pace, thought Fletcher. “Now, are there any questions before I accompany
you through to the hall?”

Tom
and Jimmy both began speaking at the same
time,
and
Tom nodded politely to his opposite number, as he suspected that they would be
asking exactly the same questions.

“How
many counters do you have?” asked Jimmy.

The
official once again whispered in the mayor’s ear. “Twenty, and all of them are
employees of the council,” said the mayor, “with the added qualification of
being members of the local bridge club.” Neither Nat nor Fletcher could work
out the significance of this remark, but were not inclined to ask for further
clarification.

“And
how many observers will you be allowing?” asked Tom.

“I
shall permit ten representatives from each party,” said the mayor, “who will be
allowed to stand a pace behind each counter and must at no time make any
attempt to talk to them. If they have a query, they should refer it to my chief
of staff and if it remains unresolved, he will consult me.”

“And
who will act as arbitrator should there be any disputed ballots?” asked Tom.

“You
will find that they are rare in Madison,” repeated the mayor, forgetting that
he had already expressed this sentiment, “because for many of us this could
well be our last chance to register a vote.” This time no one laughed, while at
the same time the mayor failed to answer Tom’s question. Tom decided not to ask
a second time. “Well, if there are no further questions,” said the mayor, “I’ll
escort you all to our historic hall, built in 1867, of which we are
inordinately proud.”

The
hall had been built to house just under a thousand people, as the population of
Madison didn’t venture out much at night. But on this occasion, even before the
mayor, his executives, Fletcher, Nat and their two respective parties had
entered the
room,
it looked more like a Japanese
railroad station during the rush hour than a town hall in a sleepy coastal
Connecticut resort. Nat only hoped that the senior fire officer was not
present, as there couldn’t have been a safety regulation that they weren’t
breaking.

“I
shall begin proceedings by letting everyone know how I intend to conduct the
count,” said the mayor, before heading off in the direction of the stage,
leaving the two candidates wondering if he would ever make it.

Eventually
the diminutive, gray-haired figure emerged up onto the platform and took his
place in front of a lowered microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “My
name is Paul
Holbourn
, and only strangers will be
unaware that I am the mayor of Madison.” Fletcher suspected that most people in
that room were making their first and last visit to the historic town hall.
“But today,” he continued, “I stand before you in my capacity as elections
officer for the district of Madison. I have already explained to both
candidates the procedure I intend to adopt, which I will now go over again...”

Fletcher
began looking around the room and quickly became aware that few people were
listening to the mayor as they were busy jostling to secure a place as near as
possible to the cordoned-off area where the vote would be taking place.

When
the mayor had finished his homily, he made a gallant effort to return to the
center of the room, but would never have completed the course if it hadn’t been
for the fact that proceedings could not commence without his imprimatur.

When
he eventually reached the starting gate, the chief clerk handed the mayor a
pair of scissors.

He
proceeded to cut the seals on the twenty-two boxes as if he were performing an
opening ceremony.

This
task completed, the officials emptied the boxes and began to tip the ballots
out onto the elongated center table. The mayor then checked carefully inside
every box-first turning them upside down, and then shaking them, like a
conjuror who wishes to prove there’s no longer anything inside. Both candidates
were invited to double-check.

Tom
and Jimmy kept their eyes on the center table as the officials began to
distribute the voting slips among the counters, much as a croupier might stack
chips at a roulette table. They began by gathering the ballots in tens, and
then placing an elastic band around every hundred. This simple exercise took
nearly an hour to complete, by which time the mayor had run out of things to
say about Madison to anyone who was still willing to listen. The piles were
then counted by the chief clerk, who confirmed that there were fifty-nine, with
one left over containing fewer than a1 hundred ballots.

In
the past at this point, the mayor had always made his way back up onto the
stage, but his chief clerk thought it might be easier if the microphone was
brought to him. Paul
Holbourn
agreed to this
innovation and it would have been a shrewd decision had the wire been long
enough to reach the cordoned-off area, but at least the mayor now had a
considerably shorter journey to complete before having to deliver his
ultimatum. He blew into the microphone, producing a sound like a train entering
a tunnel, which he hoped would bring some semblance of order to the
proceedings.

“Ladies
and gentlemen,” he began, checking the piece of paper the chief clerk had
placed in his hand, “5,934 good citizens of Madison have taken part in this
election, which I am informed is fifty-four percent of the electorate, being
one percent above the was average for the state.”

“That
extra percentage point might well turn out to our advantage,” Tom whispered in
Nat’s ear.

“Extra
points usually favor the Democrats,” Nat reminded him.

“Not
when the electorate has an average age of sixty-three,” rebutted Tom.

“Our
next task,” continued the mayor, “is to separate the votes of both parties
before we can begin the count.” No one was surprised that this exercise took
even longer, as the mayor and his officials were regularly called on to settle
disputes. Once this task had been completed the counting of the votes began in
earnest.
,;
Piles of tens in time multiplied into
hundreds before being placed in neat little lines like soldiers on a parade
ground.

Nat
would have liked to circle the room and follow the entire process, but the hall
had become so crowded that he had to satisfy be himself with the regular
reports relayed back to him by his lieu tenants in the field. Tom did decide to
fight his way around and came to the conclusion that although Nat looked as if
he was in
I
the lead, he couldn’t be sure if it was
sufficient to make up the 118-vote advantage that Fletcher currently enjoyed
following the recount of the overnight ballots.

It
was another hour before the counting had been completed, and the two piles of
slips were lined up facing each other. The mayor then invited both candidates
to join him in the cordoned-off area in the center of the room.

There
he explained that sixteen ballots had been rejected by his officials, and he
therefore wished to consult them before deciding if any should be considered
valid.

No
one could accuse the mayor of not believing in open government, because all
sixteen ballots had been laid out on the center of the table for everyone to
see. Eight appeared to have no mark on them at all, and both candidates agreed
that they could be rejected. “Cartwright should have been sent to the electric
chair,” and “no lawyer is fit to hold public office,” were also dismissed just
as quickly. Of the remaining six, all had marks other than crosses against one
of the names, but as they were equally divided, the mayor suggested that they
should all be validated.

Both
Jimmy and Tom checked the six votes and could find no fault with the mayor’s
logic.

As
this little detour had yielded no advantage to either candidate, the mayor gave
the green light for the full count to begin. Stacks of hundreds were once again
lined up in front of the counters, and Nat and Fletcher tried from a distance
to gauge if they had won or lost enough to change the wording on their letterhead
for the next four years.

When
the counting finally stopped, the chief clerk passed a piece of paper to the
mayor with two figures printed on it. He didn’t need to call for silence,
because everyone wanted to hear the result.

The
mayor, having abandoned any thought of returning to the stage, simply announced
that the Republicans had won by a margin of 3,019 to 2,905. He then shook hands
with both candidates, obviously feeling that his task had been completed, while
everyone else tried to work out the significance of the figures.

Within
moments, several of Fletcher’s supporters were leaping up and down once they
realized that, although they had lost Madison by 114, they had won the state by
four votes. The mayor was already on his way back to his office, looking
forward to a well-earned lunch, by the time Tom had caught up with him. He
explained the real significance of the local result, and added that on behalf
of his candidate, he would be requesting a recount. The mayor made his way
slowly back into the hall to be greeted with chants of recount, recount,
recount, and, without consulting his officials announced that was what he had
always intended to do.

Several
of the counters who had also begun to pack up and leave quickly sidled back to
their places.

Fletcher
listened carefully as Jimmy whispered in his ear. He considered the suggestion
for a few moments, but replied firmly, “No.”

Jimmy
had pointed out to his candidate that the mayor had no authority to order a
recount, as it was Fletcher who had lost the vote in Madison, and only a losing
candidate could call for a recount. The Washington Post wrote in a leader the
following morning that the mayor had also exceeded his authority on another
front, namely that Nat had beaten his rival by over one percent, also rendering
a recount unnecessary. However, the columnist did concede that rejecting such a
request might well have ended in a riot, not to mention interminable legal
wrangles, which would not have been in keeping with the way both candidates had
conducted their campaigns.

Once
again, the stacks were counted and recounted, before being checked and
double-checked. This resulted in the discovery that three piles contained 101
votes, while another had only ninety-eight. The chief clerk did not confirm the
result until he was sure that the calculators and the hand count were in
unison. Then he once again passed a piece of paper to the mayor with two new
figures for him to announce.

The
mayor read out the revised result of 3,021 for Davenport to 2,905 for
Cartwright, which cut the Democrat’s overall lead to two votes.

Tom
immediately requested a further recount, although he knew he was no longer
entitled to do so. He suspected that as Fletcher’s majority had fallen, the
mayor would find it difficult to turn down his request. He crossed his fingers
as the chief clerk briefed the mayor.
Whatever it was that
the chief clerk had advised, the mayor simply nodded, and then made his way
back to the microphone.

“I
shall allow one further recount,” he announced, “but should the Democrats
retain an overall majority for a third time, however small, I shall declare
Fletcher Davenport to be the new governor of Connecticut.” This was greeted by
cheers from Fletcher’s supporters, and a nod of acquiescence from Nat as the counting
procedure cranked back into action.

Forty
minutes later, the piles were all confirmed as being correct, and the battle
looked to be finally over, until someone noticed one of Nat’s observers had his
hand held high in the air. The mayor walked slowly across to join him, with the
chief clerk only a pace behind, and inquired what the query was. The observer
pointed to a pile of one hundred votes on the Davenport side of the table, and
claimed that one of the votes should have been credited to Cartwright.