Thursday, 4:30 PM
Wilkerson declares victory in write-in ballot count
(Suarez, Essdras M/ Globe staff)
By Donovan Slack and Maria Cramer, Globe Staff
Incumbent Dianne Wilkerson declared victory early this evening with an apparent 692-vote victory after election officials counted write-in votes from eight precincts that had been overlooked in Tuesday's primary.
However, Sonia Chang-Diaz, the second place challenger, had not conceded the election as of 6:30 p.m.
The hand count of 2,709 ballots took about four hours and gave Wilkerson a total of 6,395 votes to Chang-Diaz's 5,703 votes.
Results reported by the Globe can be viewed here. When officials began tallying the ballots at 2:30 p.m., Wilkerson clung to a 141-vote lead over Chang-Diaz.
Workers on the eighth floor of City Hall counted ballots in three, two-member teams. One person examined the ballots while another tallied the votes. Onlookers watched in rows of chairs that had been set up behind a velvet rope.
The official tally will determine the winner in Tuesday’s contentious and hard-fought Second Suffolk District primary between Wilkerson, a seven-term incumbent, and Chang-Diaz, a school teacher.
It had been a four-way sticker race. The third place candidate, John Kelleher, gained 10 votes today to up his total to 403. Samiyah Diaz, a Republican, gained 27 votes and ended with 302.
Computerized ballot-counting machines tallied the number of ballots cast in eight Dorchester and Roxbury precincts Tuesday, but not votes for senate candidates who waged write-in campaigns in the race. A judge yesterday ordered the ballot boxes from those precincts unsealed so that the write-in votes could be counted today.
(Suarez, Essdras M/ Globe staff)
Sonia Chang- Diaz (left, writing) and Sen. Diane Wilkerson (background yellow far right) were present today as Boston Elections Department employees counted and recorded write-in ballots in Tuesday's primary election at City Hall.
