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Murphy one step closer to no-heavy-lifting, pension-padding county job
By adamg on Thu, 09/08/2016 - 8:50pm
Results from Boston, by far the largest place in Suffolk County, show Steve Murphy winning the Democratic nomination for register of deeds - even if barely, with just 31% of the vote - with runner up Katie Forde garnering 27%. That means he is still theoretically vulnerable to a strong challenge in November from one of the independent candidates - John Keith, Margherita Ciampa-Coyne and Joe Donnelly.
Meanwhile, voters gave both Doug Bennett, this time also running for register, and Roy Owens, this time running in the 2nd Suffolk state-senate race, the chance to run for something else next year.
In other contested races, Chynah Tyler will succeed retiring state Rep. Gloria Fox in the 7th Suffolk state rep's race in Roxbury. Liz Malia won re-election in the 11th Suffolk (JP, Roxbury), Dan Cullinane won re-election in the 12th Suffolk state rep's race in Dorchester, and Angelo Scaccia retained his14th Suffolk nod in Hyde Park and Roslindale.
Also winning another shot in November: Sheriff Steve Tompkins.
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Comments
Always disappointing
Steve Murphy in line for another gig with only 35% of the vote.
I'd like to think he'll lose in a general but to review, I received robocalls of support from McCarthy (my rep) and Rush (my state senator) Why? Not because Murphy is particularly qualified or skilled, just because he's their long time Dem. ward buddy. It's disheartening.
John Keith is more qualified and actually wants to improve the office of Deeds but machine Dem voters don't care. Murphy is a brisk reminder that this city isn't actually progressive in governance.
Hopefully
This is the last we hear of Doug Bennett.
I "wooden"
count on it.
Doug has nothing to say
Total radio silence from Doug's twitter account. Last post was Sept 3 when he insulted the Globe and announced he was going to win the election.
https://twitter.com/bostonpolitics
Earth to Doug? Are you ok? Also, it's time to pick up the signs and have a bonfire. I'll light the fire if you want.
Get with the times. Doug dropped
Twitter for telepathy. Those voices you hear in your head, That's Doug.
John Keith
If you're reading this, it's time to start your PR blitz. Talk to the columnists at the Globe, as they are eager to see Murphy miss out on this. The Herald and Globe editorial boards would love nothing more than for an independent to beat this guy.
Switch to decaf.
Columnists at the Globe and Herald? Editorial boards? These people and platforms are over, though they both still deliver to those on the waiting list for Cedar Grove cemetary. Citizens get more in-depth analysis and opinion from Adam and this site's keyboard warriors than in either local birdcage liner.
Not so fast
About 100% of those on the waiting list for Cedar Grove cemetery actually VOTE. The local papers still carry a fair amount of weight. If they really decided to put their weight behind trashing Murphy and boosting one of the indies, it would make a big difference.
Both papers trashed him to no avail. Those Cedar Grove
wait listers are his constituancy.
Not over
I think the reason Katie Forde made such a strong showing was because of the Herald and Globe endorsements.
Newspaper endorsed candidates did not fare well.
A strong showing is no substitute for winning.
Globe, Herald ...
And some serious campaign organizing.
Terrifying
The fact that there is a large and growing segment of our population who don't understand the difference between journalism and anonymous comments on the internet is fucking frighting.
If you're telling me the Globe & Herald are bastions of
journalism then you've redefined "fucking frightening".
Not exactly
They are far from perfect but a hell of a lot better than BosMurph69 reporting he saw his city councilor at the packie buy a bottle of vokda, so clearly he's an alkie, etc...
The Spotlight series alone justifies the Globe's continued existence.
Brian McGrory's boss , John Henry's trophy wife
will be happy to hear that.
Katie Forde
To be fair, no one really knew much about Katie Forde and she came within a hair of beating him. If the anti-Murphy vote wasn't diluted it has enough power to beat him.
And you need the Globe and Herald (with all their faults) to lead the charge just like they did in the City Council race two years ago.
Murphy benefited from a large field of candidates
I have a feeling that a lot of people were in the same boat as me, didn't want this entitled hack getting the job, but not sure which other wannabe had the best chance beating him. I would have gladly voted for Forde, instead throw away the vote with Nutting to show for it.
ring ring
ugh - 4 robocalls for Murphy yesterday. That alone is worth voting against him...
Term Limits
Term limits for every public position. Enough with this life long, townie, hack politicians.
-the original sobo yuppie.
Tick, tock, squeeze
By the bye, at 9:53, the tally has narrowed to 5%, about 31 to 26, but he's still up over Forde, who's in second now.
In his home precinct, he ended with 246 votes to her 74. At the bottom of Hyde Park, the southernmost part of Boston and far from City Hall and recording, he was at his best. TBD
Still a race
For a pretty tame primary, this remains a race to watch. At 9:57 with over 90% of precincts tallied, it's Murphy by 4% about 31% to about 27%. Better than TV. I hope both candidates have their smelling salts at hand.
Squeak
Intriguing...Steve Murphy's strategy of name recognition in a 7-candidate field worked as he said it would. With 100% reporting:
STEPHEN J MURPHY 9696 30.97%
KATHERINE V FORDE 8558 27.33%
STEPHANIE L EVERETT 3585 11.45%
JEFFREY MICHAEL ROSS 3103 9.91%
DOUGLAS BENNETT 3052 9.75%
PAUL F NUTTING, JR 2487 7.94%
MICHAEL B MACKAN 736 2.35%
Write-in Votes 91 0.29%
crap
.
Doug Bennet beat
Paul Nutting....
That's just
crazy.
Sad
n/t
As a Nutting voter
I think he would have done better if he had his mother and son robocalling on his behalf.
Now there's a headline.
Nutting beat by nut.
Vote may be misleading
The stats may be misleading.
Note the "Write in" numbers.
Each candidate had its own oval to fill-in as did a small write-in slot. If anyone filled-in the write in slot, that counted as a write-in vote. Such ballots are side-tracked in ballot machines into a side compartment after they are fed into the ballot machine and tallied.
The precinct officials then need to retrieve these and account for the votes manually.
While a vote is tallied as a write-in, if the voter left the slot blank, nothing is recorded. This is usually considered a "down vote" with the voter indicating that he/she did not like any of the candidates.
As to scofflaw Bennet... messages here on UH have suggested that he has been observed tearing down candidate signs and replacing them with his own. Aside from the obvious vandalism implications it could also be interpreted by the courts as attempting to illegally influence an election, and also violate freedom of the press.
He has also posted his signs on city property (which I have seen around the city) which is also illegal, not to mention posting them on private property without permissions. He selects abandoned brownfields for a reason... it's likely no one is paying attention.
His presence in the running for what ever elective office is open is quaint and humorous, but I think its time to put an end to this and seeing him prosecuted under appropriate statutes. I suspect that his beating anyone for an elective office was the result of gross ignorance on the part of the voting public or some kind of warped sense of humor on the part of some.
A vote wasted is a tragedy.
At my polling place "at the
At my polling place "at the bottom of Hyde Park," one current and one former city counselor were blocking the entrance to the polling place and urging everyone who tried to squeeze by them and vote to do so for Murphy.
Care to
name names?
Not this time. I got into it
Not this time. I got into it with them on the spot, and ended up getting an apology from the current councilor. If it happens again in November, I'm taking pictures and going public in UHub comments right after reporting them to the Secretary of State.
Secretary of State, yeah right
You mean the guy who employs Steve Murphy's wife and likely didn't simply appoint someone to the open seat so his pal Steve Murphy could run for the open seat? That Secretary of State?
There's not so much hard corruption in the city but the soft corruption is off the charts.
And once again Dougie B lost
He's still batting 0 in Boston. Time to give it a rest Doug. Even Al Garrison won one election. And she won the Republican primary today in the 5th Suffolk Rep election in a landslide.
Oh yeah.
That's what they said about Dicky Nixon in 1962.
There's a difference between Tricky Dick and Dougie B
Tricky Dick, whom I despised, was at least a very intelligent individual.
and he could paint a hell of a plywood
sign!
It's all relative
54 to 2 IS a landslide. But the 2 other votes were write-ins and her democrat opponent in November got thousands of votes.
Ugh
One of those nights where no races went the way I wanted, at least in my ward.
My consolation is that Leland Cheung got his hat handed to him in 2nd Middlesex Senate race.
A few Sample Specimen Ballots from today's Election
A few Sample Specimen Ballots from today's Election
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/509nz5/boston_election_commissi...
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/51v3x1/a_few_sample_specimen_ba...
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/50b4ur/cambridge_massachusetts_...
How might Ballot design be improved?... layout?... font?... wording?... enboldings?...
I thought it was a strange
I thought it was a strange bias, to see a notation on the ballot, that Murphy was a former Coty Counselor. As if that makes him more legit...? No one else had their resume listed near their name.
I didn't know John Keith was still in the race, and his name wasn't on my ballot. I'm a registered Dem FWIW.
John Keith is an independent
That's why he wasn't on your ballot, or anyone else's, today.
Thanks!
I thought it was weird enough that ROD was an elected office, I didn't realize that even then, it was broken down by party affiliation
Murphy
Murph was the only candidate on the ballot who has held elected office in Boston, so that's why his former City Council status was listed. Apparently Dougie Bennett held some form of elected office in Nantucket, dog catcher, or sign inspector, whatever, for one term until the voters got smart. But it wasnt in Boston, where DB has never won anything, because he is a professional loser.
i'll just leave this here
Sure, we can look past the typos, past the mis-spellings, past the questionable "charities" and inflated affiliations with which Roy has padded his resume (personal fave: member of Franklin Park Zoological Society), past the unfinished website, past it all, and we can simply appreciate Roy Owens for who he is: Man. Husband. Father. Possible con artist.
And hark, how he would like to strike the Aborters, the Gays, the Homosexual With Intent To Marry and bring them ungrammatically low:
But just when you think this stalwart Man Of God cannot give more, he hands us this gift, his email address:
Have a good time, you guys
(Many thanks to my co-worker Jim for pointing this out to me)
Keeping it classy with an
Keeping it classy with an email that's slang for a type of dick piercing. Nice
He got buried, right?
The guy's a nutjob, but I can't find official results for this race, though the Globe has called it for Chang-Diaz. I really like her: personable and willing to listen to constituents (I see her on the playground sometimes, as her kid is the same age as mine), but tough as nails when she wants to get something done.
Who is near him?
If you live or work near Murphy, get out your cameras. Let's see when he arrives at and leaves his office. Of course, he could be looking at Florida brochures all day....
The Masstablishment wins.
The Masstablishment always wins.
Nope
Unless you consider Tim Toomey an insurgent or something.
Had there been one fewer candidate in the register race, we'd be congratulating Forde this morning.
Doug "Ralph Nader" Bennett
Thanks a pantsload, Doug.
Dan Cullinane
If you add up the second and third place finishers in the Cullinane seat race, the incumbent only won by 100 votes. Ambitious wanna-be pols in that district take note.
Sheriff
Perhaps one of the reasons why Alex Rhalimi didn't do well in his race for sheriff: I got his mass mailing at my house in Norfolk County.
Kinda hard to vote for the guy when you aren't even in the right county.
You'd be surprised
Not all people voting are educated to the process or issues or candidates.
I can say that there were people seeking to vote for people that were not on any ballots in specific geographical locations. In other words people were showing up to cast a ballot for "John Doe" when "John Doe" was not a candidate for any office in a specific location or part of a political party whose run-off event this was. In the end they wrote that person's name in and felt good about themselves. However, when that person is not a candidate in a specific geo-location or a specific party ballot, that doesn't count, since this was a political party primary and not a general election.
There were also people casting mixed ballots, meaning they may have chosen a Democratic ballot then wrote in their favorite Republican for an office. Write-ins of that nature will also not be counted. You cannot vote for a Republican on a Democratic ballot or vice-versa.
Then there were the ravers that didn't want to have to choose any political party ballot because they were an "Independent!!!!! That precipitated the need to calmly explain this was a political party run-off and not the general election, and while an UN-ENROLLED person was allowed to vote, they had to choose which party they were supporting for this run-off purpose.
And as it may seem, this also precipitated the need to explain that while "INDEPENDENT meant something a couple of generations ago, i.e. you were not enrolled in a specific political party, the term is now "UN-ENROLLED," and that the new(er) United Independent Party is often confused with that passe' term. The press was rife with stories about that in the last primary (presidential) back in March, and the sweat on the brow of the Secretary of State and countless elections commissioners statewide when they discovered that thousands of people were using "INDEPENDENT" when they meant "UN-ENROLLED."
And then there were those looking for the state referendum questions to vote on, and the need to explain again that would be on the November ballot.
The voting system may be flawed but until it is changed, and that won't come easily, people need to learn the how-to of things as they are. A lot of people just don't know what they are voting for, or for whom, or what the issues are.
There are of course many who do, and that makes the process at hand quite worthy.
From hope springs faith.
Duty of a citizen
Really, it is not that difficult to figure out how to vote, even in a primary election held on a Thursday. I will be happy to hold information sessions, online, or in person, if that helps.
Parasitic
Can't these people like Murphy do anything outside of government?
Hello, Suffolk County
Hiii.
My ears were burning so I knew someone was talking about me somewhere. They're also ringing, but that's my tinnitus.
I agree, I don't think Steve Murphy is the best person for this position. At least five of the other Democrats running yesterday would have done a better job.
I was expecting Murph to win (but was excited when I saw Katie getting close). My strategy all along has been based on having to go up against him. That it is him in the final is both a plus and a minus.
The plus is all the disgruntled voters who have had just about enough of him.
The minus is, his name recognition, and, unfortunately in this case, the (D) next to his name.
It will be tough to beat a Democrat in a presidential election year.
I wouldn't have run, though, if I didn't think it were possible.
If you really believe that he doesn't deserve to win in November, and/or you believe I should be Register of Deeds, I am blatantly asking for your support.
My website is johnfordeeds.com.
You can make an online donation, there, or find my address there and send me a check. I could use volunteers to help with door knocking, mailings, etc., as well. Please send me an email at [email protected] so I can get you organized.
With your help I hope to have someone who actually has real estate experience in the position, someone who has the ability - and the desire - to succeed.
EDIT: Oh, did I forget to mention I am advocating for abolishing Register of Deeds as an elected position, replacing the whole structure with one appointed Register, statewide, and First Assistant Registers being in charge of each of the 21 county registries?
EDIT
Way to bury the lede, John!
Vote for this man, people! Together we can run him out of a job!
Once upon a time...
...my father was Assistant Commissioner of Public Safety (for a state way south and west of Massachusetts). After a year or so, he resigned, and (in his final report) recommended that the position be abolished because it was useless. I don't believe his recommendation was followed. ;-)
John, would you be willing to take questions on UHub...
...sometime, maybe setting up a dedicated AMA-type blog entry for a few hours, if Adam gives his blessings?
Here's why I'm asking: most of my professional experience has been in government and political archives, but especially government. I'm glad to see that you have experience with building websites-- that is important. There are some off-the-shelf options for creating data-searchable document sites, but they are mostly tweaked for professional records managers and archivists to set up, though they can be user-friendly for maintenance once established.
As an aside, the Deeds site is horrible for basic searches. Anyway...
As far as I could tell from the folks running in the primary, none of the Dems had that specific records/archives experience, though some had more useful experience than others. It sounds like you have useful experience, but, again, not in migrating documents and records from an older system into a better, more searchable interface.
I have nitty-gritty questions for the people running about how they plan on improving the system. Everyone has valid criticisms of it, but changing an extant public database is not cheap or easy. I don't think that it must be done by someone with an MLIS, but I would like to know details of how the candidates plan on improving the site.
For sure
Thanks for asking; I would be happy to do that. Perhaps we can do it on Reddit, even though I've never done that before, or on Periscope?
I was a business analyst for a couple years and an implementation consultant for a couple more, so I have done conversions. These were mutual fund systems used by Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Mellon / BNY, etc. Lots of records but very straightforward in/by design. So, I know the lingo. I've also done system QA work on the side during the past decade for Genuine Interactive and the MFA.
When I'm being smarmy I say that the Deeds' data could be converted in just one weekend with a laptop and a couple of Northeastern graduates. Not accurate, but it makes a point.
Lets cut to the chase and have you answer the tough
questions Murph has faced for years. We'll start with: Ruth Chris of Mortons?
Harsh
Someone who supports me but doesn't know Boston politics said to me, "Steve Murphy seems the type of guy who eats at the same restaurant every Friday night."
I don't even know what that means but ..
Legal Documents, Amendments
[Boston Massachusetts] Any hints, tips, pointers how to track down the most recent now in force authoritative Legal Documents and Amendments that are the narrative text describing the Boundaries of Boston Precincts?... narrative text descriptions of Boundary Streets and physical features that are Precincts' Boundaries?
So far, what turned up is at
http://bostonwardsprecincts.blogspot.com
The City has Descriptions but didn't cite the legal Source of the texts.
Boston Redevelopment Authority maps didn't cite reference Sources for drawing maps at
http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/research-maps/maps-and-gis/e...
Neighborhood Network News 9/9/16
Neighborhood Network News 9/9/16
https://bnntv.org/vod/neighborhood-network-news/neighborhood-network-new...