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!

[tealegirle.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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.

[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?

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

thank you for posting these.