Recount confirms Wilkerson victory in
Boston Senate race
By Matt Viser and Brian R. Ballou, Globe
Staff
City election workers, after a tense day painstakingly
reviewing more than 25,000 ballots under the scrutiny of
campaign volunteers and lawyers, declared Dianne Wilkerson the
official Democratic nominee in the Second Suffolk Senate race.
Wilkerson was expressionless as the assistant register of
votes, John Donovan, announced at 9 p.m. that a recount had
widened the incumbent's lead.
``I hope now we can move on," she said.
The final tally had Wilkerson with 6,478 votes to 5,711 for
her challenger, Sonia Chang-Diaz. It was a more decisive win
than had been originally counted on election night, when
Wilkerson le d by 141 votes. Wilkerson now faces Republican
Samiyah Diaz in the general election.
As the totals were read yesterday, Chang-Diaz approached
Wilkerson, shook her hand, and uttered congratulations. An
aide distributed prepared concession statements.
``From the beginning, this was about the principles of good
governance," she said later. ``No matter what the
outcome, I feel every voter won something today."
The recount began yesterday morning after election
officials brought in metal boxes that contained ballots from
last week's primary election. With crowds of supporters in the
room observing every move, election workers shuffled through
ballots at 15 counting tables in a scene that soon resembled
the tense 2000 presidential recounts in Florida.
The recount bogged down early, with lawyers for each
candidate circling the room and bringing up frequent
objections and deliberations over questionable ballots.
A lengthy protest kept one table at a standstill for nearly
an hour because a voter had written ``State Senator Dianne
Wilkerson" in black ink, but it was in the wrong spot on
the ballot.
Another table stopped because a voter had written in ``Diaz
(Dem)." Election workers and campaign representatives
deliberated about whether the voter intended to vote for
Chang-Diaz, a Democrat, or Samiyah Diaz, a South End
Republican who will face the Democratic nominee in the general
election. The ballot was ultimately thrown out.
The recount closes a chapter in what became a long election
saga. Initially, Wilkerson found herself in the fight for her
political life when she failed earlier in the year to get the
300 signatures needed to get her name on the ballot in the
Democratic primary and Chang-Diaz entered the race.
Wilkerson's oversight forced a write-in campaign in which
voters had to write the name and address of their choice or
affix a sticker bearing the same information and then mark an
oval next to the name.
Both candidates said there were problems with the way the
city handled the voting.
The morning after the Sept. 19 primary, Chang-Diaz trailed
Wilkerson by 141 votes when officials discovered more than
2,700 ballots that had been overlooked by election workers. A
four-hour public count Sept. 21 at City Hall extended
Wilkerson's victory to 692 votes, or 5 percent of the 12,933
votes cast in the state Senate race.
Many political observers -- along with Chang-Diaz -- said
the gap was probably too wide to close, but the 28-year-old
former school teacher refused to concede the race. She said
she wanted to expose problems in a write-in campaign that
confused many voters and caused headaches at polling places.
Her campaign gathered enough signatures to force a recount in
eight of the 10 wards.
A judge ruled Thursday that the city had to recount all
wards in the district because this case was ``a terribly
unusual situation" and an issue of ``public confidence in
the accuracy of the election."
``No matter what the outcome, this is a good day,"
Chang-Diaz said earlier in the day. ``It's a good day for the
City of Boston."
Indeed, throughout the process, Chang-Diaz, focused less on
her loss and turned the recount instead into an indictment on
the city's election procedures.
Some speculated that could help raise her profile and lay
the groundwork for another political campaign.
The district's 10 wards include Jamaica Plain, Mission
Hill, Chinatown, Fenway, Roxbury, the South End, and parts of
the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Dorchester, and Mattapan.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
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