The recount requires fifty signatures of registered Democrats from all ten wards in the district. With one day left, Sonia Chang-Diaz campaign needs manpower. Moreover, they are tired, and wishing this thing were over. Im no exception. But I am passionate about this recount and its importance for Boston. I am also just a little bitter. The Chang-Diaz campaign is doing what amounts to a huge public service for the people of Boston by pushing through with this recount, yet many of the people I talk to are scornful. She should let it go. The recount already happened. [Which is false.] If you lose, you have to accept that. It makes me want to say, Fine, people. Go ahead and watch your votes be miscounted year after year. Im not even in your city, its no skin off my back.
Many people dont understand what the fuss is about. They didnt see what I saw on the night of the election poll workers who had no idea how to count the votes, who were shuffling around piles and piles of ballots in ways that made me sick to my stomachwere those two piles supposed to be combined? Is that poll worker following the same process the last one was? Are we still trying to count the votes here, or have we given up? Many people probably think this was a normal election, and a recount is just a way of staying in the press, prolonging the inevitable. If other precincts had problems anything like what I saw (and they did, and the Globe reported on it too), then the final election numbers mean very, very little.
This recount is not about Ms. Chang-Diaz and Sen. Wilkerson. The official line of the Chang-Diaz campaign is that the recount is unlikely to change the result, and that may well be true. Personally, Ive mentally made the assumption that Sonia is not going to win, and Im still passionate about this recount happening. What I saw of the vote-counting gives me a complete lack of confidence in Bostons and by extension, Massachusetts ability to count votes correctly. This means that all those people who walk into the polls on Election Day may be accomplishing precisely nothing, because no one cares about whether or not the vote count is right. Thats a thought that gets me very upset.
I havent spoken with Sonia Chang-Diaz herself about her thoughts on the recount. Maybe she still wants to win. If so, she has every right to feel that way, since she knows as well as I the poor quality of the vote counting. But for me, this recount is about teaching Boston to count the votes of its citizens. If it doesnt happen now, it may not happen for a long time. And that is wrong.
I imagine you in the BMG community are tired of this, you want to get ready for November, you have Second Suffolk fatigue. Despite all that, I strongly urge anyone who has an hour Monday morning or afternoon to get down to the Chang-Diaz campaign (37 Roxbury St Boston, 617-848-0875), where folks who dont really expect to win anymore are working hard to make sure Boston figures out how to count votes.
Because its important.
please move this to the front page.
I am involved in a recount down my way. One of the first things discovered was that in one precinct, the optical scanner failed to register the first seventeen votes. This was considered quite normal.
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If the margin of victory hadn’t been eleven votes, it would never have been remarked upon. And that’s just one precinct.
Please tell us more, Peter.
It’ll be interesting to see how they match up against the original tallys, although I am not aware of a Mass. recount that has ever changed a result with the exception of Delahunt-Johnston.
That would certainly be good news, but can you provide a source for this?
See here:
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http://www.capecodon…
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Why the heck is it every little thing I say lately, somebody is demanding proof?
Sorry, I thought you were referring to the Second Suffolk race, and I was looking all over Boston media websites for some story about that.
…you happened to be the last in a long line of – oh, yeah? Prove it! – replies to my comments.
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In my recount, the margin of victory was less than 1/2 of one percent, which is almost an automatic recount when requested.
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IMHO, Second Suffolk should be recounted as well.
It’s customary on blogs to expect links to sources for news or other events or announcements that people make. Don’t take it as a challenge to your honesty.
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Personally, I find it frustrating when people post about something they obviously have a source for, but don’t link to the source, even if I completely believe them – because I want to read more, and they’ve made it harder for me to find the information they’re using, even though they probably had it handy.
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But often, people read your comments without knowing who you are, and have no reason to believe everything they read on the net. There are a lot more lurkers than active commenters. Include your sources for the lurkers, too.
I apologized too. It was just the three demands in a row that got irksome.
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F’instace, is ANYBODY going to include a source about the party registration of Jasper White or the identity of the lady they think is Mrs. Schilling? Instead of just making a statement?
Keller says it is her
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As does the Globe
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And she referred to Curt in her question…
I was there at the filing at city hall. Boston says they’re certifying this evening and we may have the result tomorrow morning. Read my post about the last few hours of this signature drive.
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P.S. The Wilkerson campaign filed for recounts in two wards, as well.
How many signatures were gathered? I don’t see why it would take more than an hour to cetify them.
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Ours were done in about 20 minutes, the papers driven to Boston, and the recall press release sent out by Brian McNiff – before 3 o’clock, two hours before the filing deadline!
The requirement is 50 signatures each in the 10 wards that are all or partly in the Second Suffolk. The 50 signature rule is special just for Boston, in the rest of the state it’s just 10. So, in practice, somewhere around 100 raw signatures per ward were handed in, with fewer in some and more in others. That means they have something on the order of 1,000 to work through, and 600-800 to certify, by my rough estimate – on literally hundreds of sheets of paper, many with just one signature on them.
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I saw the 50 signature requirement for the precinct by precinct – very odd. Why would they not also require different to appear on the balot, if they require different for the recount?
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Just curious – the requirements are much more lenient for a district-wide recount, which is what is happening here on Cape. What was the margin of victory in Second Suffolk?
…or a margin of 5%.
The problem is there was no margin of victory, because they didn’t count the votes properly, so there’s only a phantom margin. Supposedly, it was 141 votes at first, and then expanded to about 700 votes when they counted 8 precincts. Neither of those margins was small enough (less than 0.5%) to qualify for the easier districtwide recount rule. But both of those numbers are also fictional and meaningless, because we know Boston miscounted or ignored at least hundreds and probably thousands of votes. They just don’t have a procedure in place for “oops, we fucked up” – and that’s scary.