Somerville preliminary election results

[ron_newman]

The Somerville elections department emailed me a spreadsheet of unofficial results from Tuesday's preliminary election. (I think they consider me to be a news reporter.) Here are the totals for Mayor:

Turnout: 5304 ballots cast (10.2%), of 52228 registered voters.

Joe Curtatone - 3013 (56.8%)
Marianne Walles - 1945 (36.7%)
Kenneth Van Buskirk - 249 (4.7%)
Write-In - 36 (0.7%)
Blank - 61 (1.2%)

In Ward 3 School Committee, Sarah Phillips received 624 votes, Mary Marshall 414 votes, and Michele LIppens (eliminated) got 351 votes.

I do not know why anyone would show up at the polls and then cast a blank ballot for the only race on the ballot, but at least 25 voters did exactly that. (61 minus the 36 mayoral blanks cast in ward 3, whose ballot also had a School Committee race.)

Comments

[squirrelitude]

Assuming the scanner was working correctly, I imagine those 25 voters must have circled the candidate or something similar, rather than filling in the bubble.

[rmd]

I would just assume they wanted to make a statement akin to voting for 'none of the above'. Something like "Yes, I care about engaging in civics, but fuck all of y'all"

[redbird]

I thought of that, but with a write-in space, if I felt that way I would more likely write "None of the Above" or "Fuck this" or something like "Mickey Mouse" or "Jello Biafra."

[squirrelitude]

Ah, fair enough. :-)

[elusiveat]

So, does this mean that Curtatone stays our mayor?

I guess I've been confused as to what "preliminary" means here.

[ron_newman]

No. He need to beat Marianne Walles in the November election.

[elusiveat]

Thanks!

[ron_newman]

A preliminary election reduces the number of candidates to two. Even though Joe Curtatone received a majority vote in the preliminary, he still needs to face Marianne Walles in November.