Preliminary 2013 Cambridge Election Results (Nov 5)
Nov 6, post midnight – It was an interesting night at The Count. Susana Segat and I did the live broadcast from the Senior Center and had many guests on the show including many of the City Council and School Committee candidates. In years past I would have been the first person to deliver the results, but tonight we were busy from the beginning of the show at 9:00pm all the way until 11:30pm or later. In case you have not yet heard the preliminary results, here they are:
City Council (in order of election – modified Wednesday to reflect actual order of election in final round): Leland Cheung, David Maher, Dennis Benzan, Tim Toomey, Denise Simmons, Marc McGovern, Craig Kelley, Dennis Carlone, Nadeem Mazen. [Detailed Report]
Incumbents defeated: Ken Reeves, Minka vanBeuzekom
School Committee (in order of election): Patty Nolan, Fred Fantini, Richard Harding, Kathleen Kelly, Fran Cronin, and Mervan Osborne. [Detailed Report]
Incumbents defeated: None
The City Council election quota was 1713 with 17,128 valid ballots counted. Only Leland Cheung exceeded quota with a surplus of 604 ballots.
The School Committee election quota was 2292 with 16,040 valid ballots counted. Three candidates reached quota on the 1st Count: Patty Nolan with a huge surplus of 1502 ballots, Fred Fantini with a surplus of 493 ballots, and Richard Harding with 3 surplus ballots.
It’s important to emphasize that these are the preliminary figures. There are an additional 710 additional City Council ballots that will be inspected and included on Wednesday. Many of these may be blank ballots, but most will likely contain valid choices. In the City Council race, in the deciding round the vote totals for the 7th through 10th place candidates were: Kelley 1517, Carlone 1510, Mazen 1481, and vanBeuzekom 1466. That’s only a 15 vote margin between 9th and 10th place, so it’s possible that the unofficial results on Wednesday could change.
In the School Committee race, there are an additional 1,673 ballots to be inspected and counted on Wednesday. Most of these will likely be blank ballots without valid choices. However, even if there is a substantial number of valid ballots yet to be counted, the margins between candidates are such that it’s essentially impossible for the results to change.
I’ll be at the Senior Center on Wednesday and will post the final, unofficial results when they are known. – RW
“Kelley 1517, Carlone 1510, Mazen 1481, and vanBeuzekom 1466.” Did you really mean *McGovern* 1466?
Comment by Joel T Patterson — November 6, 2013 @ 5:20 am
No, that’s the correct sequence at the end of the 16th Count. To expand it a bit, the order of candidates who had not yet reached quota was McGovern 1636, Kelley 1517, Carlone 1510, Mazen 1481, and vanBeuzekom 1466 in the 6th through 10th spots. That’s when Minka would be defeated in these preliminary results. At that point her ballots would be transferred in the final 17th Count to the remaining continuing candidates. Without actually seeing the ballot data, it’s hard to know for sure in what sequence they reached quota. The detailed report is a little ambiguous in that it indicates the sequence Carlone, Kelley, Mazen, McGovern in one place and McGovern, Kelley, Carlone, Mazen in another place. I’ll have to look further to see what the correct sequence was, but the only thing that’s important was the order at the end of the deciding 16th Count. Everything after that was a formality.
Comment by Robert Winters — November 6, 2013 @ 7:14 am
Say goodnight, Ken.
20 years too late,
but better late than never.
Comment by Fred Baker — November 6, 2013 @ 9:18 am
When multiple candidates are elected on a “count”, how is the order of election determined? Is it who gets their needed number of votes first based on the redistribution?
Comment by Greg Heidelberger — November 6, 2013 @ 10:06 am
I looked at the report of the last round in the City Council race and compared the way order of election is reported to previous elections. Based on that, I believe the actual order of election in the final round (when Minka’s ballots were transferred) was Marc McGovern, Craig Kelley, Dennis Carlone, Nadeem Mazen and I modified the post to reflect this belief. The results were announced last night based on the table that is produced by the election tabulation software, but I’m pretty sure the notes at the end better reflect actual order of election.
Comment by Robert Winters — November 6, 2013 @ 10:37 am
Robert, I enjoyed watching your show last night. Quite different from the old Longfellow Gym days!! Although you might have explained it during the show I missed it, but what exactly is an “Auxiliary” ballot? Thanks, Kevin Crane
Comment by Kevin Crane — November 6, 2013 @ 11:24 am
My impression, Robert, is that the system this year added the candidates elected in each round to the bottom of the list in alphabetical order – so in the final round, it listed Carlone, Kelley, Mazen, McGovern in that order, because redistributing Minka’s votes put all four over the top of the quota. Your revised order looks like the actual order of election.
Comment by Yoni — November 6, 2013 @ 12:02 pm
An auxiliary ballot might be a blank ballot, a ballot containing an overvote, or a ballot that was set aside for some other reason such as an uncooperative scanner. Basically, it’s any ballot cast on Election Day (or absentee) that wasn’t recorded by the scanners. Ten days after Election Day, the Election Commission will look at “provisional ballots” and overseas absentee ballots. There usually aren’t many of these. The provisional ballots are typically ballots from people who said they were registered but weren’t listed. They might also include a voter who went to the wrong precinct. Only after all of these additional ballots are included on Nov 15 will the results be official, and even then there’s the possibility of a recount.
Comment by Robert Winters — November 6, 2013 @ 12:20 pm
This is the first time I’ve followed the election closely and I’m fascinated by the vote count method. From what I’ve heard, the order of ballot counting actually can make a difference in the outcome. The discussion on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_single_transferable_votes seems quite thorough. Has anybody compared the results generated by the “Wright” method of tabulation with the official results? Is it possible to get the raw data to do such an analysis?
Just curious.
Comment by Steve Harris — November 6, 2013 @ 3:42 pm
According to http://www.openstv.org/cambridge:
Can it really be true that Massachusetts law prohibits other cities and towns from using STV?
Comment by Steve Harris — November 6, 2013 @ 4:50 pm
When the additional ballots are counted on Wednesday, how are they added into the mix? Are the rounds conducted all over again with the larger set of ballots?
Comment by Larry Kolodney — November 6, 2013 @ 9:11 pm