I originally posted the unofficial precinct-by-precinct results, as called in to the Denise Provost office by precinct captains at each polling place. I’ve now updated to official results, and recalculated the totals. Vote counts in italics increased by 1 vote from the unofficial numbers, those in bold increased by 3 or 4 votes (there were no +2 vote adjustments)
total | Provost | Moroney | |
---|---|---|---|
2-3 | 211 | 147 | 62 |
3-1 | 374 | 219 | 155 |
3-2 | 368 | 231 | 132 |
3-3 | 346 | 197 | 147 |
4-3 | 245 | 120 | 125 |
5-1 | 404 | 241 | 159 |
5-2 | 338 | 195 | 141 |
5-3 | 426 | 269 | 151 |
6-1 | 381 | 267 | 112 |
6-2 | 420 | 293 | 125 |
6-3 | 249 | 164 | 85 |
Total: | 3,762 | 2,343 | 1,394 |
In the Second Middlesex Senate special election last year, 5,245 Democratic ballots were cast in the 27th Middlesex district, so this Tuesday’s turnout was about 72% of that. I think this is more in line with a “normal” special election – turnout for Pat Jehlen was unusually high.
I spent much of the day, until polls closed, walking around the southern portion of ward 5 precinct 3 – from the Porter Square Supermarket to the gas station at Elm & Somerville, and up to Summer Street (5-3 goes up a few blocks past Highland, but we had 2 other people walking the rest of the precinct). I saw very few yard signs for either candidate. I did find a good number of friends of mine whose houses I’d never been to, or who had moved recently, and turned up on my list. A number of them were not (yet) registered in Somerville :/
Some voter contacts of note:
- My favorite thing that happened all day, was a very nice man who told me he had been intending to vote for Denise but forgot that today was election day, so “you saved my life” đŸ™‚
- One old woman came to the door, and as I was giving her a Provost door hanger and asking if she was planning to vote, a younger woman – perhaps her daughter – came to the door. She said, “I’m going to take her to vote”, then she looked at my door hanger and added, “but not for Provost! She’s done nothing for my taxes!” The older woman looked a bit lost and said, “oh…”. I called the office and asked them to take that address off our GOTV lists for the day – I’m pretty sure the older woman had been planning to vote for Denise but was not going to. It was frustrating, to hear Denise blamed for a problem she’s just now running to have the opportunity to fix. I guess if the woman meant income taxes she was unintentionally right – Denise probably won’t do anything to cut those. But I assume she meant property taxes, and that’s something Denise intends to work on (possibly through keeping income taxes up). Oh well.
- One woman beckoned me into the foyer with “I have a question to ask you.” She asked me what Denise’s position on abortion was, and I said “she’s very strongly pro-choice.” “Oh, good!” the woman replied, “I want to vote for her but then I saw NARAL endorsed Moroney and I wondered…” I explained to her that Moroney is on NARAL’s board, so it makes some sense that they’d endorse her, but it’s not because Denise is bad on the issue. This one voter was relieved to hear it, but I fear there were probably other voters who were affected by NARAL’s endorsement to doubt Denise’s stand on reproductive rights.
… and now, some poor quality I took at the victory party with my cell phone…
Some of the crowd:
A couple of campaign workers from SEIU 1199:
Representative Carl Sciortino, at the back:
Debbie from CPPAX:
Marty Martinez, a PDS member and recent candidate for alderman-at-large, who worked on Denise’s campaign:
You can also see the back of Ward 6 Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz’s head.
Marty Martinez came in a respectable 5th place for 4 alderman-at-large slots this November. Will Somerville elect him as Denise’s replacement after she steps down as alderman?
what happened out in Gardner?
No. I’ve been monitoring the news and newspapers and appearently the special election primary results are not as newsworthy as say… dogs being electrocuted, or designer knockoffs being sold on the cape.
<
p>
I did notice that the Sentinel & Enterprise managed to update their site to reflect that Joe Thornton was tossed out five minutes into the Bruins game.
<
p>
But no elections results.
Gardner News is reporting that Robert Rice wins. I made with the User Post here
The city of Somerville has releaed the precinct-by-precinct results. The PDF file says “Official” while the Election Department’s link to it says “Unofficial” — not sure which is correct.
I was a precinct captain for Denise (in 6-3) & I had the same experience but with a younger voter re: the choice issue. Moroney’s lit was not only really negative overall but it was highly misleading on the choice issue — I wouldn’t be at all surprised if many voters were confused…
<
p>
The SEIU guy on the left walked some of my precinct for me — those guys were great!
<
p>
Thanks for the pictures, Cos. I think I’m in the back left in the 1st crowd shot (I was standing next to Carl).
<
p>
And, speaking as Marty’s treasurer, if wishing made it so, then your last sentence will come true! Here’s hoping! đŸ™‚
<
p>
Kudos to Marty, as well as Ed and Lauren, for running a kick butt campaign. And congrats to Denise!