From the city unofficial results page:
| Votes | % | |
| Fuller | 5234 | 36.65 |
| Lennon | 4690 | 32.84 |
| Sangiolo | 3503 | 24.53 |
| Cecchinelli | 610 | 4.27 |
| Katzoff | 162 | 1.13 |
| Saunders | 45 | 0.32 |
| Woodward | 28 | 0.20 |
| Write-in | 8 | 0.06 |
| 14280 | 100.00 |
We’ll look at the ward-by-ward breakdown when it’s posted.
Let the general begin!
There is a map of the elections results on slide 4 of this presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rxPrmAjqI3tjkVF6_fw4kuH3zhrX_gBvZWqVBMkSqco/edit#slide=id.g253f3560ef_0_0
Great map. Thanks Logan.
14K votes. Out of how many registered in Newton?
There are about 56,000 registered voters. According to a Patch article the other day, city officials were hoping for a 20% turnout, which would actually be at the high end for a local preliminary, so if anything yesterday exceeded expectations. (I assume that the roughly 30,000 unregistered residents are largely children.) With interest so minimal, I don’t see the point in these preliminary contests. If voters can distinguish among seven candidates in September, they can manage it in November as well, without having the field pre-digested for them by a small fraction of their neighbors.
I’m shocked by the low turnout. I felt certain that after last November’s presidential election, registered voters in Newton would be (in the words of one of my neighbors) “charged up to be involved” in future elections, even if it was for dog catcher. Clearly, I was mistaken. I hope more people come out on November 7.
Amanda, I think the reason for holding the preliminary is to narrow the field to two candidates so that in the general election, the winner will have won a majority (and thus have more of a demonstrable mandate).
Given that rationale — and the reasons you stated — I think it makes sense to hold the preliminary election much closer to the general election. Maybe 1, 2, or 3 weeks before the general. There certainly is not much time between people “returning from summer” around Labor Day and the currently scheduled preliminary elections. In talking with several dozen voters between Sept 1 and 9, I found that very many were undecided, even one week before this election. These people vote regularly, they knew a preliminary election was coming up sometime soon, and they were generally aware of three very qualified leading candidates — but they were genuinely undecided because they had not spent time reading, listening, learning about these candidates.
Thanks, Bruce, you’re quite right. No matter the office at stake, people just aren’t ready to concentrate on an election in early September, when the start of the school year and gearing up for work after summer vacation are much more immediate concerns. Perhaps a switch to ranked-preference rather than either-or voting in November would be a solution, allowing a majority of people to feel that they had a hand in selecting the winner, even if only as a second or third choice.