Rain and wind kept many away from the polls in Boston last Tuesday during the city’s General Election for the At-Large City Council race. There were also District races in other neighborhoods, but District 1 City Councilor Lydia Edwards, who represents East Boston, Charlestown and the North End, ran unopposed this time around.
Citywide a little over 16 percent of registered voters cast their ballots for one of the eight finalists running in the At Large race and only 13 percent cast ballots in Eastie.
In the At-Large race three incumbents were the top vote getters in Boston. City Councilor Michelle Wu topped the ticked with 41,616 votes (20.71 percent) followed by Michael Flaherty, who received 33,242 votes (16.54 percent). Annissa Essaibi George was just beat Falherty with 34,054 votes (16.95 percent). The fourth spot for an At-Large seat ended in a statistical tie with only 10 votes separating Julia Mejia who received 22,464 votes (11.18 percent) and Alejandra St. Guillen who got 22,454 votes (11.18 percent). As of deadline the two candidates are locked in a recount for the last spot in the council.
Rounding out the race were Erin Murphy (8.38 percent of the vote), Althea Garrison (8.04 percent of the vote) and former Eastie resident David Halbert (6.57 percent of the vote). Garrison was the only incumbent who did not retain a seat on the council.
In Eastie, Wu topped the ticket with 1,451 votes, followed by Flaherty, who received 1,351 from voters here. George, a former school teacher and coach at East Boston High School, was third among Eastie voters, with 1,342 votes, followed by Mejia, who finished fourth in Eastie with 954 votes.
In the bottom four in Eastie were St. Guillen, with 916 votes, Halbert, who got 668 votes, followed by Murphy, with 526 votes and Garrison with 476 votes.
Although she ran unopposed, Councilor Edwards was the overall top vote-getter in Eastie with 2,060 votes.
“It is my great honor to be re-elected and to continue serving residents of Charlestown, East Boston and the North End. Bostonians clearly spoke yesterday, across the city, that our government must act on critical challenges like housing, transportation, climate change, addiction, and economic justice while ensuring all communities are part of the political processes that shape our lives,” said Edwards after the election. “I am incredibly excited that new councilors-elect who will be joining me ran their campaigns on many of the issues that drove me to enter public service, and I am confident we will enter 2020 with a council passionate and eager to take on tough challenges. Between now and the new year, I will be working to advance legislation to address the housing crisis and combat bias and discrimination, advocating for our community in major development projects, and continuing to address every letter, call and email that comes our way to ensure people in Boston’s District One enjoy quality of life and a responsive government. Thank you for your support and ongoing engagement, and I can’t wait for our next steps together.”
The busiest Eastie precincts during last Tuesday’s election were Precincts 1, 11, and 12. Those three precincts outpaced voting city wide with over 17.5 percent heading to the polls in those three areas of Eastie.