City Council Candidates Forum Poll Removed

There were a number of reports during the last two days of "get-out-the-vote" drives: requests to vote on the candidates forum poll I put up a couple of days ago.

I estimated a bit under 100 people attending the forum, while the A-B TAB put the number at 75. There are always some people who don't do email, others who don't do the internet, many who haven't ever heard of a blog, others who think Brighton Centered is a pile of dog doodoo to be avoided at all costs, etc. So you can't expect all those attendees to make it to the blog to vote.

When the number of voters today (105) exceeded the number of people in attendance at the event, it was clear that the poll results have been manipulated. The results are meaningless and clearly not representative of the public's feeling on who did well in the forum. I notified the campaigns not to use the results in any literature, by the way... and other media should be similarly warned.

We'll chalk this one up to a bad experience.

Maybe we can expect 75,000 votes to be cast in Allston-Brighton in the September 25 election? It would be interesting, because the neighborhood only boasts 70,000 residents (and far fewer registered voters). I'm all for the Chicago method of getting out the graveyard vote!