Unofficial 2013 Cambridge Election Results (Nov 6, 2013)
| 16th Count | |
| Cheung, Leland | 1774 |
| Maher, David | 1774 |
| Simmons, Denise | 1774 |
| Toomey, Tim | 1774 |
| Benzan, Dennis | 1774 |
| McGovern, Marc | 1682 |
| Kelley, Craig | 1560 |
| Carlone, Dennis | 1553 |
| Mazen, Nadeem | 1546 |
| vanBeuzekom, Minka | 1540 |
Nov 6, 8:30pm – The plot thickens in the City Council election. At the end of Tuesday’s ballot count, there were only 51 votes separating the 7th through 10th candidates with only 15 votes separating the 9th place candidate (Nadeem Mazen) and the 10th place candidate (Minka vanBeuzekom) in the decisive 16th Count. When Wednesday’s auxiliary ballots were included, the gap between the 7th through 10th candidates (Kelley, Carlone, Mazen, vanBeuzekom) narrowed to just 20 votes and only 6 votes now separate the 9th place candidate (Nadeem Mazen) and the 10th place candidate (Minka vanBeuzekom) in the decisive 16th Count.
At this point the winners have not changed, but the margin of victory is now shockingly small. There will be one last official count on Friday, November 15 that will include any overseas absentee ballots and provisional ballots. In some recent elections, due to the method of surplus distribution, the addition of just a few extra ballots has caused swings of 20 or more votes in the tabulation.
City Council (in order of election): Leland Cheung, David Maher, Denise Simmons, Tim Toomey, Dennis Benzan, 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
Unofficial Election Results – City Council and School Committee (PDF) [link corrected]
Robert – I can’t remember a previous election that was this close among so many candidates. The 9th and 10th slot have been close before, but this is truly extraordinary. Any theories as to why? My initial thinking is that there were an exception number of mid-range candidates: those who campaigned hard and got 300+ #1 votes. But that doesn’t explain why so many made it to the 15th round.
Comment by Phillip Sego — November 7, 2013 @ 8:44 am
Here’s a comment I made on Facebook that’s worth repeating:
There is no difference between ballots counted on Wednesday and ballots counted on Tuesday other than the fact that the Wednesday ballots are included after the Tuesday ballots per precinct in the sequence of ballots for each candidate. The tabulation software is then run again. The preliminary results announced on Tuesday are really just that – preliminary, meant to give people a sense of who the likely winners would be with the LARGE caveat that these are only preliminary results. When we do the TV broadcast, that’s one thing we always emphasize over and over. It is the inclusion of additional ballots throughout the sequence of Leland Cheung that creates the uncertainty here. When his surplus is distributed to other candidates based on secondary preferences, it’s possible that a very different set of over 600 ballots will be transferred, and that can affect the relative standing of continuing candidates.
In Tuesday’s preliminary count, Leland Cheung had 604 surplus ballots to give. Of these, 34 went to Nadeem Mazen and 52 went to Minka vanBeuzekom. In Wednesday’s unofficial count, Leland had 615 surplus ballots, and of these 30 went to Nadeem and 68 to Minka. That’s a gain of 20 ballots. The subsequent defeat of various other candidates (who received other Leland surplus ballots) also affects the relative standings in later rounds, but it’s really that net gain of 20 off Leland’s surplus that best explains how the gap of 15 votes between Nadeem and Minka narrowed to just 6 votes on Wednesday.
There will be very few additional ballots included next Friday (Nov 15). If Leland gets no additional ballots, then his surplus ballots should be the same. However, if he gets any additional ballots and if any of them are in precincts early in the sequence of precincts, then we could see a very different surplus distribution.
Comment by Robert Winters — November 7, 2013 @ 9:22 am
The most comparable close Cambridge municipal election that I know was the 2001 School Committee election in which 3 candidates were within 7 votes for the last two seats. This time we have 4 candidates within 20 votes for the last 3 seats in the unofficial results.
http://rwinters.com/elections/school2001.pdf
I agree that the presence of a larger number of mid-range candidates contributed the closeness, but I would add the fact that there’s no clear distinctions between many of these candidates. This means that as they are successively defeated, their ballots don’t cause extraordinary shifts among continuing candidates. In the old CCA vs. Independent days, when a CCA candidate was counted out this would cause continuing CCA candidates to leap forward and the margins would generally increase rather than decrease. It’s all different now.
Comment by Robert Winters — November 7, 2013 @ 9:30 am
Hello Robert,
Thanks for helping Cambridge residents stay current with elections and city politics more generally. Can you tell us what is going on or what went on with Friday’s count?
Estelle
Comment by Estelle Disch — November 8, 2013 @ 5:52 pm
The next chapter in this ongoing drama will be NEXT Friday, November 15 when the additional provisional and overseas absentee ballots are inspected and possibly added to the rest of the ballots. The tabulation will then be run one final time and those will be declared the “official” winners in the election. Because the margin for the last seat is guaranteed to be very close, a recount is a near certainty.
If there is a recount, then ALL of the ballots will be inspected and matched to the greatest degree possible with the electronic record of the “official” count (the one that happens on Friday, November 15). Once the matching takes place (which will take days to do), it is likely that the Count will then be conducted by hand, just like the good old days. I suppose it’s conceivable that it could be done via software once the ballot data has been verified, but this is only possible if all the affected parties agree to that. If not, there is a right to have a hand count.
There’s a 3 day window (deadline is Wed, Dec 20 at 5:00pm) during which a candidate can petition for a recount, but I would hope that any aggrieved candidate would make that request right away so that there will be minimal interference with preparations for the December Special election for the Markey seat.
Comment by Robert Winters — November 8, 2013 @ 7:12 pm
Thanks! That helps a lot.
Estelle
Comment by Estelle Disch — November 8, 2013 @ 11:05 pm
Why bother matching if there’s going to be a hand count anyway?
Comment by Tom Stohlman — November 9, 2013 @ 7:50 am
Tom – Because The Law requires it.
From Chapter 54A:
§ 12. Recount of ballots. Partial or complete recounts of the ballots cast for any body or office in an election by proportional representation or by preferential voting shall take place in the manner provided in sections one hundred and thirty-four to one hundred and thirty-seven, inclusive, of said chapter fifty-four, except that any petition shall be submitted on or before five o’clock in the afternoon of the third day following the public announcement by the director of the count of the result of the vote for such body or office and shall be on a form approved and furnished by the city or town clerk and be signed in a town by ten or more voters of such town, in a city, except Boston, by fifty or more voters of such city and in Boston by two hundred and fifty or more voters of said Boston and except that any such recount in any city or in any town divided into precincts shall be conducted for the entire city or town instead of for specified precincts. If a partial or complete recount of the ballots cast in such an election shall in fact take place, it shall be conducted according to the rules prescribed for the original count as nearly as is practicable.
There’s also this in § 9.:
(o) …
If in correcting an error any ballots are re-sorted or re-transferred, every ballot shall be made to take the same course that it took in the original count unless the correction of an error requires its taking a different course. The principles of the rules of this section shall apply also to any recount which may be made after the original count has been completed.
http://www.rwinters.com/docs/chapter54A.htm
Comment by Robert Winters — November 9, 2013 @ 8:03 am
Robert,
I remember this from 2001 (and less so in 2009). The Walser campaign tried mightily to “maintain the course of the ballots”, but the errors (and subsequent corrections) made it virtually impossible.
Since then, the Election Commission has done some major positive things to keep errors to a minimum. A big improvement was to have the optical scanners flag overvotes and give the voter a chance to correct them.
There is always the chance that errors will change the first round totals. I don’t expect those errors will favor one candidate or another.
The key here is the Cheung vote, since that vote was the only with surplus ballots (over 600) to give. I’ll be shocked (pleasantly) if there are no errors in the Cheung vote totals. And any error whose correction leads to a different course will lead to a different count. If (when) this happens, you may as well have just done a hand recount without the matching.
I like the spectacle of an old-fashioned hand count. But once the first round ballots have been inspected and recounted I’m in favor of having ChoicePlus (™) do the count. If not, I hope there are plenty of observers. I witnessed at least 2-3 human errors during the 2009 recount, which, if they had not been picked up by observers, would have resulted in more ballots for Grassi or Nolan and may have changed the election if the initial difference between them wasn’t so high (18 ballots).
Ah, the Law (and you know I love the Law). Remember 2001, when, with the unanimous consent of everybody in the room, the passage of time stopped? And The Re-Count officially ended at 11:59:59 on Saturday December 8th? MGL 54A.s9.p(t)
Comment by Tom Stohlman — November 10, 2013 @ 10:43 am
Hi Robert
I was speaking with Chuck Henebry about the pros and cons of fractional voting in lieu of the Cincinnati Method and was interested in your take.
For instance…
Lets say Candidate A receives 2000 #1 votes.
There are 1000 #2 votes associated with candidate B on candidate A’s ballots.
There are 500 #2 votes associated with candidate C on candidate A’s ballots.
Finally, the cutoff for election is 1800 votes. Thus, candidate A has 200 surplus ballots that need to be reapportioned.
In a fractional voting scenario, candidate B would received 50% of candidate A’s surplus ballots. (50% X 200 surplus votes yielding 100 transferred votes.)
Likewise, candidate C would receive 25% of candidate A’s surplus ballots. (25% X 200 surplus votes yielding 50 transferred votes.)
Isn’t this a viable alternative to the Cincinnati method – where the number of transferred ballots depends on a random ordering created before the election? Or maybe not!? What say you?
Thanks for all your insight into these matters.
Neal Leavitt
Comment by Neal Leavitt — November 11, 2013 @ 1:03 pm