On the street
“Excuse me, are you registered to vote here in Boston?”
“We’re asking Boston for a recount because they never properly counted the write-in votes in the election last week. I only need [N] more signatures, by 5pm today. Would you sign the petition to ask Boston to count the votes?”
I made a point of tailoring my “ask” in terms of counting the votes, not supporting a candidate. I thought about whether, if I encountered someone who was clearly a Sonia supporter, I would say that I was doing this for Sonia’s campaign, and decided that I’d only do that if directly asked. No matter who I was talking to, I wanted to emphasize that the goal is to count the votes, not to support Sonia. When people asked “who’re you working for”, my first answer was always “I’m not, I’m a volunteer. This is in the election between Sonia Chang-Diaz, Diane Wilkerson, Samiyah Diaz, and John Kelleher.” Only if they asked again did I say, “I supported Sonia. But the votes have been cast so the time to argue candidates is over, we just want the votes counted.”
All told, I got about 25-30 raw signatures, but suspect that fewer than half were from ward 3 registered voters – time was too limited to spend much time making sure.
Two pairs of Wilkerson supporters were quite a contrast.
I spied four people chatting by a storefront, and asked them one by one whether they were registered voters. When I reached the third one and got the third no, a man sitting down called out, “I’m a registered voter, c’mere” so I did. As I spoke to him, a friend of his approached us, and asked some questions, and I said that I had supported Sonia. “Aww now why’d you support her for? What’s she gonna do a better job on than Wilkerson?” asked the man? I automatically started thinking of reasons why I support Sonia, but tamped that down and said, “It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you, another time I’d have loved to discuss it, but I only have about 40 minutes left before I have to go to city hall, and I need to get more signatures. We just want them to count the votes.” “That’s right”, agreed his friend, also a Wilkerson supporter. Both of them signed.
A bit later, I ran across two women walking down the street, and asked them my usual question. They were registered voters. “Who’re you working for?” “I’m not, I’m a volunteer – I want Boston to count the votes.” “Ahh, you’re for Diaz. No thanks.” I asked a second time but they just shook their heads and walked on. It’s sad when their loyalty to their candidate is more important than their support of Democracy.
The most baffling conversation I had – this happened 4 or 5 times, with different voters:
Are you registered to vote here in Boston?
Yes.
(I approach with clipboard, they pause to listen)
We’re asking Boston for a recount because they never properly counted the write-in votes in the election last week. I only need [N] more signatures, by 5pm today. Would you sign the petition to ask Boston to count the votes?
(Voter pauses, considers…)
No, I’d rather not.
You don’t want Boston to count the votes?
No.
City Hall
When I arrived, Sonia, her campaign manager, and lawyer, were all at the counter. I’d looked up a few addresses I had on single sheets on the way over, so in addition to the two sheets of ward 3, I gave Sonia a few others to sign and put in the appropriate stacks. Around the bend of the counter, a photographer from the Globe was snapping pictures. Donovan Slack, the Globe’s elections reporter, though I didn’t know who she was until after we’d finished with the paperwork.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Kevin Wilkerson there with recount petitions from the Wilkerson campaign. He told me they were handing in petitions for Ward 9 and Ward 10 – both wards which Sonia’s campaign got enough signatures in. I wonder if they thought we wouldn’t try those wards? Ward 9 was Sonia’s best ward, but I hear Wilkerson volunteers were collecting in Ward 14 as well, which was one of Wilkerson’s strongest. We made our best effort to get all ten wards, even Ward 3 which only has two precincts in the Second Suffolk.
All told, we handed in far more than 500 signatures – I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more than 1000 raw signatures, and more than 750 valid. But it’s still possible we fell short in one or two specific wards, and what happens then? I heard Sonia’s lawyer tell a reporter he’d go to superior court to file for more time if we fall short in any precinct – since Boston took two extra days to certify a count for this election, giving us less than four days to collect signatures.
Boston elections department staff were ready to start certifying right away. We may have the answer by tomorrow morning.
…for the post on many interesting subjects. I would like to add some of my experiences getting signatures, but can’t right now – hopefully later tonight. (Preview – it was one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had in politics.) All I’ll say for now is, if Sonia’s team pulled this off in this limited time, that is really impressive.
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Hopefully more later.
I’m too tired to write much … but I did have a lot on my mind after doing this signature gathering for the recount. Because of the way it was done (talking to random people on the street, not targeted at all), it was a true exposure to the political feelings of average America, or at least average Boston. 9 out of 10 people didn’t care at all. Most looked at me with open suspicion. My hope was that people would relax when they saw I was approaching them about politics, rather than asking them for money or something — but no dice. Politics was not a “friendly cause” for many, it confirmed their suspicions that they didn’t want to talk to me.
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As Cos mentions, some of the most frustrating conversations were the ones with people expressing the sentiment, “I’m happy with the result, so I don’t want a recount.” The only mitigating point to this mentality I can think of is that probably many of these people don’t view a recount as an improvement in terms of honesty; they probably think of a recount as something where both sides fight it out and the side with the most lawyers wins. I cannot entirely blame someone for thinking that. But (wish list item #1) people need to draw conclusions just a little less based on what they see on the national news, and learn a little more about their immediate surroundings – for instance, this race, which probably has about a $5K legal budget for both sides combined, and in which a recount is just that, nothing more.
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As a humorous (though not at the time) closing point, one of the worst conversations was when a man said to me, “No, I never sign anything without thoroughly researching it.” This was after I had explained the situation to him for a good minute. Again, in some situations I can appreciate that attitude. But there is just not that much to this story. Wish list #2: people need to know when to check their paranoia at the door. As a person just a few minutes later said (thankfully), “Recounts are always good, right?”
I’ll take that back. After the news that David provided above, I’ll make no prediction about Dianne’s legal budget.
Where do you find the time, man?
same question to you đŸ™‚
I’m Ernie Boch, III
I own a mansion and a yacht.
Which are the two wards where you did not collect enough signatures?
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Are any of them the same as the wards where some votes were not counted at all until Thursday?
for the post, all the details.
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As one who was a poll worker, required in my town to attend a training session each year, I am passionate about fair elections.
We hosted a South African student during that country’s first election in the ’90’s. I drove him and his friends to the State House to vote. I proudly showed him how we vote, all the protections from posting the ballot before hand, the policeman with the keys to the box, to me with my co-workers checking people in and out, keeping track of every single ballot. I assumed every Masschusetts voting precinct was as careful as we were…
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Thanks for your work.