Still Liberal: Gore and Nader Top Presidential Ticket in Cambridge

In an election that marked the city's highest voter participation rate in at least 12 years, Cambridge overwhelmingly supported Vice President Al Gore '69 on Tuesday.

Cambridge remained a Democratic stronghold in this election, as Gore collected more than 72 percent of the city's votes--well ahead of rival Texas Gov. George W. Bush's 12.95 percent.

But in somewhat of a surprise, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader also outpolled Bush, taking 13.67 percent of the city's 40,014 ballots.

At the six polling locations at which members of the Harvard community were most likely to vote, the results closely followed those of the city as a whole, with Gore taking 74.88 percent, Nader 12.05 percent and Bush 11.99 percent.

These six precincts included all Harvard College dorms, as well as Radcliffe Yard and much of the area surrounding Harvard Square.

According to Teresa S. Neighbor, executive director of the Cambridge Election Commission, the final tally will not officially be reported to the Secretary of State until absentee ballots from overseas are counted. That process should be completed next Friday, Nov. 17.

After shockingly low voter participation in the primaries earlier this year--with just eight percent of registered voters in Cambridge turning out for the September primary--voter turnout was extremely strong on Tuesday.

Neighbor said that 87 percent of Cambridge's "active voters" participated in this election--compared to rates of 86, 84 and 85 percent in the 1988, 1992 and 1996 presidential elections, respectively.

The Cambridge Election Commission defines active voters as registered voters who it can confirm still live in the city.

When inactive voters, whose names must by law be kept on the books even though their continued residence cannot be verified, are included in the tally, the participation rate drops to 63 percent.

According to Neighbor, the commission just learned last year that it was required to include inactive voters in its calculations, so this year's rate cannot be compared against those of previous elections.

In another unsurprising result, incumbent Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56 garnered 85 percent of the vote. Libertarian Party candidate Carla A. Howell narrowly outpolled Republican dark-horse Jack E. Robinson III, 6.94 percent to 6.76 percent.

Several incumbents easily coasted to reelection including Rep. Michael E. Campuano (D-Cambridge), Mass. State Rep. Jarrett T. Barrios '90 (D-Cambridge) and Mass. State Rep. Alice K. Wolf (D-Cambridge).

On the eight ballot initiatives, Cambridge voters bucked the state trend by voting against Question 4, which will cut state income taxes by .95 percent. While he initiative was approved state-wide, 62.46 percent of Cambridge voters opposed it.

Cambridge also supported Question 5, which would have pushed the state to adopt a universal health care system, in contrast with the final state tallies. 61.20 percent of the Cambridge electorate voted for the initiative.