Where to find out election returns?

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

The polls will be closing in about ten minutes.
Anybody got suggestions for good websites to keep track of the returns on?
I figure we should have results by about 11:00, but I don't think this will be big enough news for any of the nightly newscasts to report on it.

Comments

Re: election results

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Hurray! But a much closer race than I would have expected...

Moroney, BTW, had raised several thousand more than Provost, and nearly all her funding came from outside of Somerville. I was wondering what outside forces were trying to exert themselves.

Re: election results

[cos]

I don't think it was "outside forces" so much as just that Moroney is active in the party and has connections to places such as the Middlesex DA's office. Until this campaign began, she'd been an aide to State Senator Pam Resor of Acton for a long time. The more interesting part is that she was almost entirely unable to raise any money from Somerville, except for a few friends from the local party and city government.

It wasn't "close" by any stretch. Special elections are very different creatures from general elections (regular primaries are sort of in the middle). Hardly anyone votes, the majority of voters don't even know the election happened, and it's up to the campaigns to find their supporters and bug them often enough that they get to the polls on election day. Provost's campaign found and got to the polls about twice as many voters as Moroney's campaign, so I'd say that's really strong.

The population of a state rep district is about 40,000 people.
The turnout in this election was about 3700.

Re: election results

[crs.livejournal.com]

Is this one of those situations where the new Mass Democratic Party by-laws that were recently voted in could come into play?

Re: election results

[cos]

Which by-laws, and in what way? *a bit lost...*

Re: election results

[crs.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there some really gross provision voted in in the chaos of the state convention that basically let the officers of the state party override the results of a primary election if they felt like it? Some sort of reaction to the Sciortino victory...

From a message I just dug up from last May:

"- The Vinnie Ciampa clause, allowing the party leadership to oppose an
unexpected winner like Carl in the general election."

Re: election results

[cos]

Oh, I see, you mean if Elizabeth Moroney decides to be a sore loser and run a write-in campaign as an independent against the Democratic nominee, and elected members of the Democratic Party decide to support her anyway, could they evade party penalties? Umm, perhaps. Ain't gonna happen. Moroney's not the sort of person to do that.

Re: election results

[crs.livejournal.com]

Coulda fooled me from the tone she took in some of her mailings...

That's very good to hear.

Re: election results

[cos]

She conceded, and came over to the Provost election night party afterward. I chatted with her briefly there (though not about whether she'd run as an independent, that thought didn't enter my mind).

Re: election results

[ron_newman]

Moroney won't run a sticker campaign. As everyone else has observed, she and Provost agree on almost all issues. Also, it would be suicidal after being beaten in the primary by a 23-13 margin. The only two sticker campaigns in my memory came after extremely close primary elections (Piro-Albano in 1984, Sciortino-Ciampa in 2004).

Re: election results

[ron_newman]

Not sure what you mean. The Mass. Democratic Party didn't officially get involved in either candidate's campaign.

Helen Corrigan, the head of the Somerville Democratic City Committee ,supported and contributed money to Moroney. However, to Corrigan's credit, she was eventually persuaded that holding an endorsement vote at the committee's holiday brunch was a bad idea. (Full disclosure: I'm a member of the City Committee. So are both of the candidates.)