I went to vote this morning in the preliminary election for the Allston-Brighton City Council seat that’s being vacated by Jimmy McDermott. The purpose of this election is to narrow the field from six candidates to two before the final election in November (a colossal waste of money which would not be necessary if we used preferential voting or something like it).
I showed up 7:30am and was voter number 10. Some day I’d like to be the first voter of the day (polls open at 7:00am), but I suspect the kids’ll have to be a lot older before that happens.
What was remarkable was that there were six observers sitting in a row of chairs on the stage behind the check-in tables. I asked and was told that yes, this was because every candidate sent his/her own observer.
I’ve been voting at this location for a decade, and I don’t recall there ever being that many observers, not for elections involving the President, congressmen, senators, or controversial ballot questions. What could the candidates for a district City Council seat be so afraid of that all of them feel the need to have observers monitoring the voting?
