Breaking News: Recount in Wallingford Impacted by Covid-19

Breaking news. Tuesday morning broke with a notification that a person associated with Wallingford’s recount of the Jinks/Fishbein race has tested positive for Covid-19.

According to Wallingford Health Department guidelines, all participating volunteers at last Thursday’s recount are being notified of this development. The recommendation to all is to quarantine for 14 days.

As this develops, decisions will have to be made on the closure of the Registrar of Voters and Town Clerks Office. ( since initial reporting the Town of Wallingford has closed the Registrars office with all members in quarantine, The Town Clerk’s Office remains open but Town Clerk Barbara Thompson is in quarantine.). Whether Town Hall will be closed is not known at this point. Thursday’s recount took place in the Robert Parisi Auditorium which is also Wallingford’s Town Council Meeting chambers. It’s status is also as of this reporting undetermined. ( Town Hall remains open as of this update).

This marks another unfortunate development of an election that has been marred by errors in election results that lead to the recount that has now resulted in this order for quarantine. During the recount participants voiced concerns about the general safety of the recount conditions. These concerns also involved loose compliance of mask wearing while counters were in close proximity to each other. Health Department officials did inspect but did not not monitor through the day of counting.

Look for updates as this story evolves.

As of this writing participants in the recount are still being notified. ((Participants in the recount were still being contacted and notified as of noon on Wednesday.)