Voted

[magid]

A little after 5 P.M., and my ballots were 550 and 551 in the machine (which means that some odd number of people either didn't use one ballot, not voting in either the city council or the school committee race, or managed to feed both ballots into the machine together).

This is the first time I've been given stickers for voting. Makes me think of the blood donation stickers.

And this is the first time there weren't any people standing around with signs for their candidates at my polling place. There were people at at least one other polling place (city hall); I'm not sure whether the rainy day kept sign carriers in or what.

Comments

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

At my polling place, there were a ton of sign carriers! I felt like I was breaking a picket line by walking through them. Gah! So maybe they all came to my neck of town?

[magid.livejournal.com]

You must be in the influence-able part of town!

[ckd]

There were plenty of sign-holders around our polling place, too (ward 2 pct 1, over in Area 4), around 1915ish.

And yay, stickers! We got them too.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Huh. Sounds like my polling place (Youville Hospital; I never remember which ward and precinct) was just an aberration, then.

I wonder what sort of creative uses I can come up with for these stickers...

[jarel.livejournal.com]

Maybe they started counting from zero? (Yeah yeah, typical programmer ..)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Hee! Unlikely, but points for a creative answer :-)

[jwg.livejournal.com]

If a ballot gets rejected by the voting machine scanner (many possible reasons including writeins) it gets placed in the slot near the bottom of the voting machine and will get processed later (today).

[magid.livejournal.com]

Do they always count these? Or if it's clear that the elections have been won by whichever candidates, then they don't bother? (I guess it comes down to completist for statistics sake at that point.)

[jwg.livejournal.com]

They count all ballots. And there is some issue where I think it is provisional ballots (ones where there was some issue about registration) don't get counted until November 16 (or similar date).

And remember if someone dies or resigns from office during the term then the ballots that actually elected them get redistributed to the next slot and since many of their next slot selection have been elected a few extra ballots could really matter.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that they recounted the ballots if someone dies/resigns during their term! I assumed there were special elections, or appointments, or something.

(I really should have paid more attention during that boring class on government in high school...)

[jwg.livejournal.com]

They never covered this kind of an election (preferential, single-transfer-vote, at large candidates) in HS civics since it is extremely rare in the US a few years ago only the City of Cambridge and the NYC district school boards used it. Now some more places are using it for multiple candidates for a single office (called - IRV Instant Runoff Voting). Consider how democratic IRV is.. When Mike Capuano, our congressman, first ran in 1998 he got 23% of the votes in the primary where there were 10 candidates; the next person had 17% of the votes. With IRV someone else might have won. So he got to be congressman for life (he's fine in my book) with a very small number of people voting for him since primary turnout is always smaller than the general election and his opponent there was a republican who had no chance in this district.

In 2005 1464 people gave #1 to Michael Sullivan; 1607 ballots votes were needed to win (1/10 + 1 of ballots cast for a nine-person council). He (and others) was elected by transfers from other candidates who had lower numbers starting from the lowest until the 1607 ballots were obtained.

In August of this year he resigned (possible conflict of interest since he is also Middlesex County Clerk of Courts).

In the recount this September they took the actual 1607 ballots (well the computerized records of them) and reasigned them to the next candidate on his ballots. So for his original 1464 it was starting at the #2's and for the transfers it was on the ballot. Of the 1607 565 were exhausted (they either had noone else or the all the people below had already been elected). Of the remaining David Maher had 709 and the next person had 64 ... so Maher was elected. He had been elected in 2003 and was reelected yesterday.

In 2005 Maher had 902 first place votes - during the redistributions these were given to other candidates and only those that landed on Sullivan went back to him. So this is a case where it is the 2nd ... nth place votes that really count.

[breedingimperf.livejournal.com]

the boys (all three) came home wearing 'I Voted!' stickers. The Toddles was especially pleased with his, and tried to stick it onto me, his chair, his fork and himself (again). The Eldest merely pointed out that, of course, he had a sticker - he actually had two.

They'd had a vote in his class, too. With voter registration and everything!

[magid.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet used my stickers, if some more are wanted... I can picture Toddles going sticker wild :-)

There was voter registration in Eldest's class? How cool is that? What did they vote on?

[breedingimperf.livejournal.com]

they voted on what the dramatic play area should be. They held primaries, and narrowed the choices down to restaurant, school and airport. Then the 4th graders came and helped with voter registration, and the ultimate vote was for...an airport.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's great that the 4th graders got to be involved too. I can understand not wanting to have the area be a school (school within a school being unnecessary, perhaps)... but all the drama I associate with airports is negative (waiting in line, security delays, weather delays, annoying searches, uncomfortable chairs, waiting in general, no decent food, and did I mention waiting? Oh, plus overpriced parking :-). I'm assuming the kids are thinking about more interesting stuff!