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Wednesday, November 05, 2003

City of Boston Complete Election Results.
Were votes not counted in yesterday's election? What's an uncast vote?

Here are the results of my local district election:

DISTRICT 6 COUNCILLOR
Total Votes 11,456
Number of Uncast Votes 1,425


JOHN M. TOBIN, JR. 8,473 73.96%
FRANCESCA E FORDIANI 2,945 25.71%
Write-in Votes 38 0.33%

If you add up the number of votes cast for Tobin, Fordiani and Write-in, you get 11,456, which matches the Total Votes above.

So that leaves 1,425 votes being uncast.

Doesn't the number of uncast votes seem high?

What are uncast votes?

People who take ballots and don't vote?

Ballots placed into the voting machine incorrectly?

When I voted, I was told to place my ballot into the vote counting machine, face down. No instructions were given as to the ballot's orientation. Front vs. Back was not identified.

I wonder, were votes not counted?

A call to the City Election Department clears everything up. I think.

1. Uncast votes would be those ballots where people did not vote in the District race. They might have taken a ballot to vote only in the Councilor-At-Large race, and skipped the District race.

Now that makes more sense.

2. I'm told that the ballots are counted no matter which way they are placed into the machine. They can be inserted upside down, rightside up, whatever.