Cambridge election officials kicked off a recount Thursday morning in the Democratic primary for a House seat held by Rep. Marjorie Decker, a six-term Democrat who faced a challenge from local organizer Evan MacKay.
The contest between MacKay and Decker came down to the wire last week during the state’s primary election, with MacKay initially leading Decker by tens of voters and reportedly declaring victory at his primary night party.
But updated tallies released by election officials in Cambridge the next day flipped the script and put Decker ahead by a mere 41 votes out of 7,037 ballots cast. It was a razor-thin margin that prompted MacKay to seek a recount in a battle that was putting Beacon Hill’s power of incumbency to the test.
Decker declined to comment on the recount as she walked out of the Russell Youth Community Center Thursday morning.
Hours into the process, dozens of people were still hand-counting ballots at the community center. A small army of election workers cracked open boxes of votes from each precinct covered by the House district, counted them, and then moved on to the next.
Ballots whose votes were unclear were brought to the city’s election commissioners, who could make a determination on the ballot.
In one case, election commissioners debated a ballot that had been cast in Decker’s favor in which the voter marked the document with “extraneous lines.” The commissioners initially voted to count the ballot but an attorney from the MacKay campaign protested the move and argued for it to be counted as a blank.
It was scenarios like those that had occurred throughout the day, with protested votes expected to come back before election commissioners before the end of the process.
Decker and MacKay’s Democratic primary stood in stark contrast to the experience of a vast majority of incumbents at the State House.
Most of them faced little to no challenge during last week’s primary elections and were expected to glide to another term because they faced no general election challenger.
The outcome of Thursday’s recount is also likely to decide the race for the Cambridge-based House seat because there is no Republican running for the post.
MacKay has described themself as a pro-democracy organizer and a teaching fellow at Harvard. They have pointed to transparency in government, climate, housing, “progressive taxation,” and taxing the ultra-wealthy as key priorities.
Decker has spent the past two decades-plus in the Massachusetts House and serves as the co-chair of the Public Health Committee.
She successfully negotiated a maternal health bill this summer with Senate counterparts and has pointed to gun safety, labor and workers rights, and criminal justice reforms as key issues she has focused on in the Legislature.
The recount underway Thursday served as a major test to political incumbency in Massachusetts, an often unbreakable power that has fueled decades-long careers at the State House.
Decker and MacKay’s recount is not the only one in Massachusetts following last week’s primary elections.
The Republican primary between Rep. Matt Muratore of Plymouth and Kari MacRae, a Bourne School Committee member, for a South Shore and Cape Cod Senate seat also culminated in a recount.
In a statement Wednesday night, Muratore said his campaign “has shifted its focus to November.”
“In the spirit of this confidence, our campaign will respect the recount process, and we work collaboratively with election officials to ensure that the intent and will of every voter is properly discerned,” he said. “We now, however, are solely focused on Dylan Fernandes and ensuring that his dead wrong and dangerous ideas remain far away from the state Senate.”
In a post to social media Wednesday night, MacRae said the race was not called after an initial review of ballots but her campaign “picked up four votes overall.”
“Long day, but very successful,” she said.
___
© 2024 MediaNews Group, Inc
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
