In today's municipal election, Mark Ciommo has defeated Greg Glennon for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council race by 948 votes, corresponding to 59.8-39.8%. Turnout was significantly lower than expected -- in fact, barely 5% more voters casting ballots than in the preliminary election. I estimate voter turnout at 13.1%.
The surprise of the evening was hearing Tim Schofield read off the Wallingford Road vote as 333-241 for Ciommo over Glennon, meaning that Glennon actually lost votes from the Russian Jewish elderly vote since the preliminary (when he won over Ciommo 303-142). Some mighty strong arm-twisting was going on there.
In an even more awfully low-turnout vote city-wide -- 13.5% -- challenger John Connolly knocked off sitting Councilor-At-Large Felix Arroyo by around 3000 votes, according to preliminary results. Councilor Arroyo just wasn't running in the same league: he only managed to raise around $30,000 this year, far less than Connolly and Councilor Flaherty, who each managed to raise more than $300,000. Many pundits were right when they put Councilor Arroyo as the one most at risk of losing his seat.
Councilor Michael Flaherty took first, Councilor Stephen Murphy second, Councilor Sam Yoon third, and challenger John Connolly fourth.
In the Councilor-At-Large race it is amazing how few votes separated first-place from fourth-place: fewer than 4000, where Flaherty took 25,700 and Connolly 21,800. In 2005, with a bit more than twice the number of votes cast, first and fourth place were separated by more than 13,000 votes.
Challenger Carlos Henriquez, a former aide to Councilor Flaherty, did poorly in District 7 against incumbent Councilor Chuck Turner. Between the low vote total for first place and the result in District 7, Councilor Flaherty will find little to justify a run against Mayor Menino in 2009. Flaherty needed to win big, and he didn't. There's always 2013.
Bullet voting was big in this race compared to 2005. In the Councilor-At-Large race today, the average ballot had 2.7 votes out of four allowed, while the 2005 race had 2.9 votes on average per ballot. It will be interesting to see where those bullet votes occurred -- West Roxbury, anyone? -- since Councilor Arroyo's defeat indicates that they weren't generally for him.
District 2 Councilor Bill Linehan won the prize for the "least-liked unopposed Councilor," getting only 60.1% of the vote; all the other ballots either had a write-in candidate or no vote, meaning he beat out "anything but him" by only 3:2. District 8 Councilor Michael Ross was the "most-liked unopposed Councilor," garnering 76.1% of the vote, thereby beating "anything but him" by more than 3:1.
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And what a deep and great loss it is to see aspects of these election results. When I attended the Councilor at Large forum, I found Councilor Arroyo to be the most distinguished, wise, intelligent, and depthful of ALL the candidates. He represents what many women consider to be a "spiritual warrior." I never met him or knew much about him before that night. But he struck me as the one MOST in touch with issues affecting all of humanity, and also able to express himself so profoundly, simply and deeply. This is a tremendous loss of soul for the city of Boston, I feel. I have thought about how to continue this for the other city councilors - and I don't quite know what to say. Just that I don't think a casino is going to help the city in any way and I hope you all consider that.
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