Somerville election results, and general post-election open thread

[ron_newman]

Unofficial Somerville election results, broken down by precinct and ward, are here. I don't think you'll find any great surprises. Citywide:

Total votes: 35062
Obama-Biden: 28467 (81.2%)
Romney-Ryan: 4865 (13.9%)
Stein-Honkala: 747 (2.1%)
Johnson-Gray: 543 (1.5%)
Write In: 108 (0.3%)
Blank: 332 (0.9%)

Local question 4, the Community Preservation Act property tax surcharge, won overwhelmingly, 24358-7714 (with 2990 blanks). I hope this will bring much-needed repairs and restoration to the West Branch Library and the Prospect Hill Tower.

I'd love to compare this year's local results to 2008, but I can't find them online anywhere. If you know where to find these, please link to them in the comments here. The pages linked from my 11/7/2008 post no longer work. ETA: Tom Champion e-mailed me an Excel spreadsheet from which I extracted these citywide results for 2008. I also converted that 2008 spreadsheet into a Google Doc which you can find here.

This post is an open thread for any discussion whatsoever about yesterday's election (Somerville-related or otherwise).

Comments

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Salute to the hundreds (thousands?) of fellow voters who patiently waited their turn in the looong line at Ciampa Manor yesterday morning in the cold. When I joined the line at 7:40AM it was snaked two blocks back from College Avenue, and maybe it got even longer as the morning progressed. This was a much bigger turnout at that hour than I remember from 2008, and in spite of a lot of freezing feet and fingers (after a while I was physically unable to text anymore), it was great to see so many neighbors brave the cold for their turn!

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

There was a jackhammer hard at work across the street from the line. Best morning quote, from the guy behind me to his girlfriend: "Is this voter intimidation?" :-)

[thespian.livejournal.com]

When I was giving out coffee at Teele Square, I went to post a one line thing to facebook and found that my fingers were no longer warm enough to be recognized by my phone.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That is SO awesome what you did, by the way. I meant to say so yesterday on Facebook, but I had like 12 browser windows open all day and I didn't get a chance. America needs more cool Canadians! :-D

[ron_newman]

Denise Provost and Joe Lynch came by with coffee and donuts for the 6-1 line, which people greatly appreciated.

[ron_newman]

I volunteered for the city at 6-1 (Kennedy School) from about 9 to 1:45 yesterday. When I first arrived, the line was all the way to the end of Sartwell and continued some distance down Cherry Street. I think it was over 2 hours long at its peak.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Yup, it was over 2 hours long at its peak! (We got there a bit after 10am, and didn't get out until almost 12:30.) My three year old daughter did an amazing job of holding it together while we waited, and I was impressed at how few people abandoned the line.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Is there any official word as to what caused the unusually long lines at 6-1, or was it just bad luck of everyone showing up at once?

[ron_newman]

I think we need two or three check-in tables in the future, though I'm not sure how that can be done logistically. The 'gating' factor was the check-in line, not waiting for a booth or feeding the ballot into the machine.

[somgirl4.livejournal.com]

It was like that everywhere. Most places said they've never seen so many voters not even in 2008. I also think most people seem to go at the same times. In the morning before work. In the afternoon on lunch break and in the evening after work. Then you have large groups of people who want to avoid the morning, afternoon and evening crowds who try to go on off hours.

[ron_newman]

Tom Champion must have seen this post, as he e-mailed me an Excel spreadsheet with the unofficial 2008 Somerville election results. I don't see a good way to paste it in here without wrecking the format of this page (it has 30 columns). So I'll just include the citywide results from 2008:

Total votes: 32815
Obama-Biden: 26450 (80.6%)
McCain-Palin: 5197 (15.8%)
Nader-Gonzalez: 295 (0.8%)
Barr-Root: 200 (0.6%)
McKinney-Clemente: 153 (0.5%)
Baldwin-Castle: 52 (0.2%)
Write In: 160 (0.5%)
Blank: 308 (0.9%)

We had 2247 more voters in Somerville this year.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Could you put it in a Google doc and link to it? I am curious to see precinct by precinct turnout numbers.

Thanks!

[ron_newman]

Sure, here it is.

Cool

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Every single precinct gained voters from the last go, ranging from 10 more in (already high turnout) 6-2 to 360 more in Tufts centered 6-3. I suspect the Warren campaign, which was actively registering and turning out voters, had a lot to do with this. Good work!

[keithn.livejournal.com]

Were you the guy walking down the line with the enrollment book?

[ron_newman]

Most likely, though several of us were doing that at different times. I'm about 5'4", on the thin side, and I think I was wearing a black hoodie.

[keithn.livejournal.com]

I found a picture of you - I definitely met you, however briefly!

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i volunteered at the brown school and when i got there at ten the wait was an hour and a half, but they told me that earlier the wait was two hours. evidently people started out waiting outside, but by the time i got there the line was all inside the building. (up and down the stairs and down a couple hallways, but inside.)

[fangirl715.livejournal.com]

I got to the Brown School around 7:50ish, and didn't get out until around 9:20, so it was an hour & a half then. The line started out the door, down Josephine, and then took a sharp right into the parking lot, but sometime after 8 the officer on duty started moving people inside so we wouldn't all freeze, although it wasn't a whole lot warmer until you got down to the lower level and away from the door. (BTW, I brought along a batch of brownies for the poll workers--were any left when you got there? :-)

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

there were! and i ate one and it was yummy! i thought one of the other volunteers had brought them. thank you!

i figured everyone moved inside because it was (theoretically) warmer than standing outside. i admit i was really surprised when i got there at ten and there was NO ONE waiting outside, and then i was surprised again when there was this long line snaking up and down the hall inside and up the stairs.

[tealegirle.livejournal.com]

Would love one of these threads for the Medford ballot/races.

[ron_newman]

Feel free to start one, or just discuss the Medford races here.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

In Cambridge, most of the Community Preservation Act money goes to several well-connected nonprofit affordable housing developers. Very little is left over for historic preservation or open space.

[dsquare-denizen.livejournal.com]

Ah, but we are not Cambridge.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

How do you recommend Somerville avoid that problem?

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

I don't know. The housing nonprofits are much better at lobbying than whoever might support open space and historic preservation.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

I'm rather displeased that Koutoujian won. I am also generally interested in voting Democrat, but in this case, I think the independent Petrone would have been more in line with my view on treatment of prison inmates. Honestly, I think Koutoujian only got in because he was a dem and folks did not know enough about their different philosophies of the 2 candidates. When I posted on fb, several folk who voted for Koutoujian expressed their frustration at not having found much info on the web and wishing they'd known more beforehand. In this case, I think the winner is actually more Republican in his methods. I'm much more for someone who has worked in the system and is interested in rehabilitating people to be functioning citizens when they are released, not using them for free labor. Really not happy with this outcome, wish more noise had been made, but I think there might not have been much noise made because it was easier to hide behind being a Democrat than publicizing his actual plans. Argh.

[ron_newman]

The Petrone campaign never found me - no direct mail, no leaflet drops, no phone calls, no advertising in any place that I could find, not even yard signs. I knew absolutely nothing about him except for his very sparse website. Did he more effectively communicate with you?

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

No. I looked at the 2 websites and read between the lines. One talked about fiscal transparancy, community safety, and rehabilitiating released inmates, which shows some concern for the inmates. The other talked about reducing recidivism (commendable), saving tax payer $, (also commendable), and free inmate labor, but I saw no expressed concern for the wel-being of the inmates themselves. The one that expresses concern over inmates as much as fiscal responsibility is going to get my vote, which does not mean I'm knocking making the prison more efficient--just remembering that there are human beings in there.

[squirrelitude]

I couldn't find any information on Petrone, so I didn't vote in that race. :-/

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

Same here.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

Maybe I just paid more attention (or less?) but I have a very very different view of Koutoujian and an happy he has won. That office has been such a problem for a while and I think he's what's needed at least in the short term (he also has always emphasized programs for reducing recidivism above all else). I don't really know what you mean by free labor since in MA you can't force prisoners to work (they tend to eagerly volunteer for any work detail that might change up their schedule).

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

http://www.sheriffkoutoujian.com/

"Sheriff Koutoujian increased the savings from the inmate Community Work Program by 50% over the previous year. This inmate labor program completed municipal projects across the county for free, bringning $1.5million in savings to the taxpayers."

So you are saying the above inmake labor program most likely involved volunteers? Or inmates were paid internally but the labor was still free to those who benefited? I confess confusion and am open to illumination here.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

I read that Koutoujian is a lawyer with over a decade under his belt as a prosecutor. Does that not count as someone who has worked in the system? Having had bad personal experiences with corrections officers (Petrone's only 'qualification' so far as I could tell) I wasn't about to vote for one. Captains of industry they are not imho.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

"I read that Koutoujian is a lawyer with over a decade under his belt as a prosecutor."

No, not in the way I mean it--I mean something closer to daily contact with the prisoners, or even weekly, seeing them, knowing how they are doing and what's going on with them, perhaps a closer vantage point to see their circumstances, and how they could be rehabilitaed.

"Having had bad personal experiences with corrections officers (Petrone's only 'qualification' so far as I could tell) I wasn't about to vote for one."

May I ask about that exeperience? No pressure, but I am curious. I have only second-hand experience with corrections officers in Ma as the father of someone dear to me worked as one, and I know a bit about the friendships that transpired when the prisoners were released. I would not doubt that there were some bad ones, but I'm curious more specifically what happened if you feel comfortable sharing.

[londo.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine joked about writing you in for Sheriff, Ron, and it made me think - given the work I've seen you do here, if you ever decided to run for Somerville office, I feel like I would probably be in your corner.

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

Hey Ron (or Tom Champion, if he's around), somewhat off topic, but since you worked a polling place, maybe you know. When I checked out of my polling place (in North Cambridge), the man who "checked me out" called out my name and street adress quite loudly. I had noticed he did this with everyone he checked out, shouting "First Name, Last Name, Street Address". I also noticed two people sitting in chairs writing down names and addresses that he shouted. I don't remember ever having that happen when I voted before. Any ideas what that was about?

[ron_newman]

That didn't happen at my polling place, but two people from the Warren campaign sat behind the officials at the check-in table of Somerville 6-1. They checked off names on their own lists as voters checked in, and occasionally the city election officials repeated a name if the Warren poll watchers hadn't heard it clearly.

I believe any campaign is allowed to station poll watchers and take down names this way, to support their get-out-the-vote efforts.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

He was almost certainly repeating your name for observers, most likely from the Warren campaign.

As Ron mentioned, the campaigns are legally entitled to send observers to the polls. They are supposed to sit behind the inspectors and not interact with the voters in anyway. However, the inspectors are then required to clearly repeat the voter's name and address so the observers can record it.

The reason campaigns send observers is so they can make sure the supporters they identified through canvassing actually vote. If you told a Warren volunteer you were supporting her and didn't vote before 4pm, they would then make an effort to contact you and get you to the polls. That's how such efforts typically work anyway.

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

I suppose that makes sense, except they may not have been actually checking their lists, because after I voted, i had two different people come to my house over the course of the rest of the day to ask if i had voted yet. i've never seen such an aggressive effort to get people to vote.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

thank you for posting these.