Voter confusion at the Nantucket ballot box changed the result of Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Cape and Islands state representative, according to the town clerk who managed vote counting where write-in candidate Tim Madden secured 52 per cent of the vote.
Mr. Madden ultimately lost to Vineyard candidate Daniel Larkosh, the West Tisbury attorney who won the nomination for the district that spans the Vineyard, Nantucket and Falmouth.
But Catherine Stover, the Nantucket town clerk, said enough ballots were cast in Nantucket bearing Mr. Madden’s name for him to have taken the district in yesterday’s race, had it not been written in the wrong places.
“He would have had it,” said Ms. Stover. She estimated that hundreds of ballots with his name on them did not count as votes for the candidate.
“He had handed out cards with everything on them [of how to vote] but people would forget the cards,” she said.
She added that a separate race on the ballot, for representative in congress, also caused some confusion.
“He’d say he wanted to be their representative,” she said, “there were votes in plenty of the wrong places.”
Tuesday was a night full of election surprises. Mr. Larkosh swept Falmouth with 888 votes and failed to carry the Vineyard, but the Falmouth vote put him well over the top.
On Nantucket 2,454 voters turned out, a primary record on that island. Mr. Madden’s overwhelming support on Nantucket was not mirrored in the rest of the district. He secured just 14 votes on the Vineyard and 120 votes in Falmouth, where write-in votes were not officially counted until Wednesday afternoon. The Falmouth vote brought his total vote to 1,402, putting him in second place above Tim Lasker of Chilmark.
Roger Wey of Oak Bluffs finished a distant fourth with 819 votes. Meanwhile Catherine Bumpus, a candidate who appeared first on the printed ballot but had withdrawn from the race months ago, garnered 642 votes.
Mr. Larkosh said late Tuesday once the outcome was known, that Falmouth was always his key to victory.
“It came down to Falmouth,” Mr. Larkosh said from the Portuguese American Club in Oak Bluffs where he was gathered with his supporters. “It played out the way we planned.”
Mr. Larkosh failed to win any of the six towns on the Vineyard, which went to Tim Lasker. Mr. Lasker won 40 per cent of the Island vote.
However, Mr. Larkosh came in second in each town, effectively splitting the Vineyard vote along with Mr. Wey.
“I got my third,” said Mr. Larkosh.
There were five candidates. The final tallies were as follows: Dan Larkosh, 1,721 (871 on the Vineyard); Tim Lasker, 1,320 (1,184 on the Vineyard); Tim Madden, 1,402; Roger Wey, 819 (728 on the Vineyard); David Moriarty, 744 (126 on the Vineyard); Catherine Bumpus, 642 (55 on the Vineyard).
A complete story on the primary election will appear in the Friday Gazette.
This article appears in September 16, 2008.
What does it say about a candidate that wins only because of votes where people don’t know him? Not well liked on the Vineyard and apparently not well known in Falmouth… Raises some concerns!
Larkosh won by over 400 votes in a result that “stunned the district”. According to whom? Who specifically was stunned? Is there someone to quote who claims to be stunned? Were the other candidates stunned. Larkosh said it played out the way he planned so apparently he wasn’t stunned. Please cite your source of this stunning result.
It means we have to be worried about the General Election. The Vineyard will split the vote and Melissa Freitag from Falmouth will win. No Islanders this time!
Nantucket Town Clerk Catherine Stover obviously never took math. If you add up all the ballots on Nantucket and the 114 write in votes on Falmouth, Madden still fell short by about 200 votes. Not all 1900 plus Nantucket Democrats voted for Madden because the other candidates including Larkosh divided up 400 votes between them:
DEMOCRAT – 1936 Ballots Cast
REPRESENT. IN GEN. COURT
Catherine Bumpus 139 ballots
Daniel Larkosh 82 ballots
Timothy Lasker 51 ballots
David Moriarty 70 ballots
Roger Wey 86 ballots
Timothy Madden 1269 ballots
Blanks: 195 ballots
Write-ins: 44 ballots
Funny that the Nantucket Town Clerk doesn’t have any exact figures of how many incorrectly marked ballots there were. Has she made an official statement to this effect. If not, it is just pure speculation.
It was Madden’s decision to run in both the Democratic primary and the general election as an independent. Even so he wasn’t able to attract any votes anywhere else.
Larkosh was the only candidate who was able to attract a significant number of votes in two of the three areas that make up the district. Falmouth voters made amture choice based not merely on town loyalty but on the issues that Larkosh represented. That is how a mature voter makes a choice in a truly democratic process: examining the issues at stake, not simply seeing who is from his or her hometown. Perhaps that is what stunned the Vineyard political establishment and the reporters at the Gazette; that the majority of the voters in the district voted for real issues, not the same old divisive town loyalties.
For the record, I wasn’t quoted quite correctly.
I thank Freddie and George for their kind observations, however, if ALL the write-ins for Mr. Madden were written in the correct place – NOT just the votes in the Representative for Congress section of the ballot, he would have won quite handily. As we are required to itemize EACH name, we DO have numbers – locked away, safely in the vault – in case there is a recount.
I’m quite sure I can speak for all Clerks everywhere: Nantucket has no corner on the market for voter confusion.
Primaries are usually fraught with confusion. Although we dearly LOVE to call them elections, a primary is a PARTISON exercise. The majority of the general voting public are Unenrolled (aka “Independent”) voters. That means they are not “enrolled” in a political Party. Unless one IS enrolled in a political party, one has no “civic duty” to vote in a Primary.
I’m sure all Clerks everywhere would also agree: administering a Primary or an Election is a lot like childbirth. After a short time, you forget how painful it can be, and enthusiastically sign on for another.
In fact, I am looking forward to an election in November!
I happily remain, at your service.
CFS, TC