Cambridge Civic Journal Forum

RECOUNT UPDATE (Dec 7, 5:15pm)

The distribution of Leland Cheung’s 617 surplus ballots was completed today. There were a few big swings in the number of ballots transferred to particular candidates, but it appears at this point unlikely that there will be any change in who will ultimately be elected.

The candidates who gained the most in the new surplus distribution are Sam Seidel (+10) and Ken Reeves (+9), though neither will ultimately benefit from these gains. Nadeem Mazen also picked up an additional 5 ballots. The candidates who suffered the greatest loss from Original Count to Recount are Craig Kelley (–9) and Minka vanBeuzekom (–8). Dennis Carlone also lost 4 ballots in this surplus distribution.

What this basically means is that the likely outcome when this gets to the deciding round (the 17th Count this time) will be that Craig Kelley and Nadeem Mazen should have approximately the same number of ballots (7th and 8th place) followed by Dennis Carlone (9th place); and the gap between Carlone and Minka vanBeuzekom will likely be greater than in the original count.

Perhaps the only uncertainty in this may be in how the additional ballots picked up by Sam Seidel and Ken Reeves may eventually find their way to the continuing candidates when they are counted out in the 15th and 16th Counts.

It was anticipated that as soon as Leland Cheung’s surplus distribution was made official, the election workers would commence the counting out of candidates with fewer than 50 ballots (Gregg Moree), then Ron Peden, then James Williamson. This all depended upon how far they would get before the expected close of the day at around 5:00pm, but they never got past the 2nd Count. The counting out of minor candidates will begin Monday morning at 8:30am. The ballots of most, but not all, of the continuing candidates have already been matched and sequenced in accordance with the original count, so many of the next few rounds should go relatively quickly. – Robert Winters