Recount Completed – Same Winners, Similar Margins
Dec 12, 2013 – The 2013 City Council Election Recount is now complete: Recount Results (PDF, 2 pages)
Note: This chart was modified from an earlier version to reflect a correction in Count 15.
RECOUNT UPDATE – 16th Count Complete: Deciding round up next (Dec 12)
RECOUNT UPDATE – 16th Count Complete: Deciding round up next
Day 9 (today) will likely be the last day of the City Council Election Recount. They have no counted out Sam Seidel and Ken Reeves is next. At the end of that rount (Count 17) the winners will be determined (and it’s pretty much certain that they will be the same as the original winners with a margin between Carlone and vanBeuzekom in the 16-22 ballot range, though there are about 17 other ballots in play during the Reeves transfer that could narrow the margin a bit.
Here’s the latest: Results at the end of the 16th Count (PDF)
UPDATE (5:40pm) – The 17th Count has been completed except for the totals and any last verification of ballots. The results will be announced shortly and the remaining winners declared. The winners will be the same as in the original election results. The margin between 9th Place (Carlone) and 10th Place (vanBeuzekom) will also be approximately the same as in the original results – anywhere between 14 and 22 votes (by my estimate). I’ll post all the details as soon as its been made official and I get the remaining numbers. – Robert Winters
December 11, 2013
RECOUNT UPDATE (Dec 11, 3:00pm)
Cambridge City Council Election Recount – 13th Count Complete
Right now the margin between 9th and 10th place in the deciding round projects to about 14 votes, but candidates Seidel and Reeves each have 11 more ballots than they previously did and, when Seidel (16th Count) and Reeves (17th Count) are defeated, vanBeuzekom and Kelley could gain a few to narrow the margin. Though an upset is very unlikely, this ain’t over yet.
UPDATE – 14th Count Complete (3:24pm)
The projected margin between Carlone and van Beuzekom is now down to 12. Seidel (16th Count) has an additional 10 ballots and Reeves (17th Count) has an additional 11 ballots compared to the original count. When defeated, vanBeuzekom and Kelley could gain a few more ballots than Mazen and Carlone to narrow the margin. Again, this ain’t over.
The remaining rounds with transferred ballot numbers from the original count look like this (updated Dec 12, 9am):
After trimming out some excess caused by earlier rounds, there are really only about 18 ballots in play and the margin between Carlone and vanBeuzekom projects to about 18 in the deciding round. This is starting to look pretty settled now.
December 7, 2013
RECOUNT UPDATE (Dec 7, 5:15pm)
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
December 6, 2013
RECOUNT UPDATE (Dec 6, 2013)
RECOUNT UPDATE
Dec 6 – The 2013 Cambridge City Council Election Recount finished its fifth day today. The distribution and counting of ballots according to #1 Votes was completed early in the day and the results announced (see below). The rest of the day was dedicated to matching Leland Cheung’s #1 paper ballots with replica ballots created from the official electronic record of his #1 votes. This is necessary prior to any drawing and distribution of surplus ballots to other candidates (2nd Count) because of the legal requirement that ballot transfers must follow the same course as in the official results unless the discovery of an error warrants otherwise.
The matching of ballots and ballot records will continue on Saturday and, hopefully, the 2nd Count will then be carried out. Once that is complete, most of the uncertainty about the eventual election outcome will be removed since subsequent transfer rounds as candidates are defeated should proceed more or less as they did in the Official Count. The matching of paper ballots and ballot records will occur in later rounds whenever ballot order is relevant. – Robert Winters
Revised Ward & Precinct Totals for City Council Election (Recount)
Differences between Official Results (Nov 15) and Recount
panoramic photo by Tom Stohlman
December 4, 2013
Cambridge InsideOut – Episodes 23 and 24
Cambridge InsideOut Episode 23 – The Recount Commences. Broadcast Dec 3, 2013, 5:30pm.
Cambridge InsideOut Episode 24 – Looking Deeper at the Ballot Data. Broadcast Dec 3, 2013, 6:00pm.
November 30, 2013
Turnout in Cambridge Municipal Elections: 1951 to 2013
Turnout in Cambridge Municipal Elections: 1951 to 2013
The percent voter turnout in the recent Cambridge municipal election was about the same as recent years. Here are a few graphics to show the trend from 1951 to 2013:
Click for larger image
The chart shows voter turnout as a fraction of the "active" voters in order to give a better indication of actual voter turnout. This year the number of registered voters reached an all-time high – in part due to the fact that the list has not been purged out of caution because of the various special elections that have taken place (and still to take place on Dec 10 for the 5th Congressional District). As a fraction of all registered voters, the voter turnout was 25%. As a fraction of "active" voters, the voter turnout was 35%. By either measure, voter turnout was down 1%. However, the actual number of voters increased by approximately 12% from 15,971 to 17,846 based on the number of City Council ballots cast.
November 29, 2013
Different Measures of Popularity of City Council Candidates
Different Measures of Popularity of City Council Candidates – 2013 Election
Anyone familiar with Cambridge municipal elections knows the importance of the #1 vote in electing favored candidates, but there are other measures of popularity that provide insight into the general acceptability of candidates to voters. Shown below are the standings of the top 12 candidates showing #1 Vote Totals; number of ballots listing candidate either #1 or #2 (Top2); number of ballots listing candidate #1, #2, or #3 (Top3); number of ballots listing candidate anywhere from #1 through #5 (Top5); and number of ballots listing candidate anywhere from #1 through #9 (Top9). There was a total of 17,743 valid ballots in the City Council election.
|
|
|
|
|
Powered by WordPress