It seems to me that there have been a number of ties in Massachusetts recently. First of all, the 6th Worcester District State Rep. race in November, which after a number of recounts and court challenges was deemed to be a tie. (Whether or not it should have been a tie might be up for debate, but that’s what our legal system seems to have produced.) A new election was held on May 10, and Mr. Durant is scheduled to be sworn in this week.
I’m always a little confused when people call a year an “election year”. Every year is an election year for something. Charlton has quite a bit happening in a short time:
There are many, many interesting contests unfolding over the next couple months. Should be fun to watch and participate in.
The judge has ruled that our State Rep. election has resulted in a tie, and that a new election be held (Telegram, Boston.com, Walter Bird). The final decision, of course, rests with the State Legislature, which I’m guessing will comply. If they’re feeling generous, they may even help the towns pay for it. In the meantime, I suspect that Alicia will start getting his paycheck again and start voting, since people can reasonably claim that he wasn’t defeated.
It appears that the judge has heard everything and will make a decision next week.
News and commentary of the trial so far:
What I find most interesting is that there is very little talk of the infamous “spoiled absentee ballot” that nobody knew anything about. Perhaps it’s a very small part of the court case, or perhaps its story just wasn’t considered interesting by the reporters. I wish I could have attended the trial to see it all firsthand instead of relying on these reports.
I haven’t updated this in a while, but the election is still in court, even though the legislative session started yesterday. I briefly turned on the video feed of the state house yesterday in the background while I worked, and during the roll call of voting for the Speaker of the House, they called Alicea’s name. It appears Alicea remains state rep for now. I think there was a court hearing today, although I don’t know if there will news coverage of it.
Following up on my prior post, Oxford’s recount, just like the other towns other than Southbridge, came up with the same exact result as election night. Alicea’s going to bring the election to court. The main issue is an absentee ballot in Southbridge that was in the “spoiled ballots” envelope, marked for Alicea. The spoiled ballots envelope is for if one is at the polls and makes a mistake marking one’s ballot, one can bring it back to a poll worker, who puts it in the spoiled ballots envelope and gives you a new ballot. There’s no reason for an absentee ballot to be in that envelope. The ballot in question is marked as having been run through the voting machine, but rejected by it. So, did a poll worker write out a new ballot for this person and put it in to let the person’s vote count, and thus this person’s vote has already been counted? Or did the poll worker just put the ballot rejected by the machine in the spoiled pile, and thus it still needs to be counted? Nobody seems to know, and it seems that the Board of Registrars in Southbridge decided just to not count it and let the courts figure it out (2–1, on party lines, of course).
A saga of the election in the 6th Worcester District of the Massachusetts State House, between challenger Peter Durant (R–Spencer) and incumbent Geraldo Alicea (D–Charlton). The district is composed of all of Charlton, East Brookfield, and Southbridge, two of the four precincts in Spencer, and one of the four precincts in Oxford.
November 2: Election Day. That night, as the votes are counted, the initial count has Durant leading by 2 votes.
“If you were a Massachusetts state senator over the last 16 years, you were three times more likely to be indicted than you were to lose a reelection bid.”
I’m curious what people think about pros and cons of electing positions that aren’t policy-setting. For instance, Charlton currently elects its Town Clerk, and used to elect its Town Tax Collector and Town Treasurer. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts elects its Auditor and Treasurer. I’m not sure how policy-setting the Attorney General and Secretary of the Commonwealth are, but they’re elected too and might fit in this category.
Many of these positions require specialized knowledge and training, and it’s not clear that voters always know who would actually do the best job. Although, it’s not always clear than an appointing authority (in the executive branch, say) would do the best job either.