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The reporting of 1,000 votes for Democratic candidate Christopher Robertson in the 2022 race for the 16th District State Senate seat has been confirmed by the Connecticut Secretary of the State to have been in error, and her office is now working with lawmakers to correct the error in the official record for the race, in which Republican incumbent Senator Rob Sampson was the winner. The error did not change the outcome. Sampson is the one who brought it to officials' attention.
According to the Oct. 2 release from the Office of the Secretary of the State, the tabulator tape from the Prospect Firehouse for the Nov. 8, 2022, general election shows Robertson received 491 votes. However, when those votes were entered onto the Moderator's Return that the town submitted after the election, Robertson was credited with 1,491 votes at the firehouse. When all of the absentee votes were counted, Robertson received 563 votes at the firehouse, not the 1,563 reflected in the 2022 Statement of Vote. This means that the official record credited Sampson's opponent with 1,000 votes he did not receive at the Prospect Firehouse.
Sampson notified the Prospect Registrars of Voters and the Secretary of the State's office of the discrepancy. The paper records from the election had been preserved and, as a result, officials were able to go back to the original vote totals and confirm the error in the vote count for Robertson at the firehouse polling place, the release said.
"This is exactly why paper election records are so important," said Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas. "Years later, we can go back to the source, see what happened, and confirm the correct vote total. In this case, the records are clear. Now we want to work with our legislative partners to make sure the Statement of Vote reflects the correct information."
The town's Registrars of Voters, Marianne Byrne and Katie Blinstrubas, also confirmed the error. "Once Senator Sampson brought this to our attention, we reviewed the records and confirmed what happened," they said. "We're grateful to him for bringing it forward and appreciate the Secretary of the State's office for their partnership."
The correction to the mistake in the official record cannot occur within the current correction window for the 2022 General Election. Connecticut's process for local election officials to review and correct results closed within weeks of the 2022 General Election, and the Prospect discrepancy was discovered after that process was complete and after the State Senate had formally accepted the results of that election, the release said. The Office of the Secretary of the State will work with lawmakers to update the 2022 Statement of Vote in the upcoming legislative session.
Additionally, the release noted that the new tabulators introduced in 2025 for election night reporting have already eliminated the possibility of errors of this type by automating the manual process of data entry.
Sampson said that regardless of who is on the ballot, election results must be accurate. "Election results must be accurate, period," he said. "It doesn't matter who the candidate is or what party they represent. Every candidate deserves a fair election and an accurate accounting of the votes cast."
Sampson also explained that even though the error did not change the outcome, he wanted to bring attention to the error because it was so large and deserves to be taken seriously regardless of who the candidates were. He stated that "Voters should be able to trust that the official results reflect the votes that were actually cast and that when an error is identified, there is a clear process to correct it." Sampson also stated that he has proposed legislation multiple times to make the underlying records that are used to report election results more readily available to the public, though those efforts have not advanced into law.
"Greater transparency gives voters the ability to see the records for themselves and helps ensure that discrepancies can be identified and addressed," said Sampson. "I look forward to advancing a legislative solution to make sure the official record is corrected and that similar errors can be properly addressed in the future."
The release did not say when such a bill would be introduced or in what form, and the correction cannot be made until the next legislative session.
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