Election Results To Be Contested

In a scene reminiscent of last November in Florida, Cambridge election officials announced the results of two tight local races last night amidst discussion of a possible recount over a School Committee race where the difference between winning and losing was a mere six votes.

Election officials announced that all the City Council incumbents and two of the progressive Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) challengers had won council seats, though the new School Committee will not include three-term incumbent Susana M. Segat, whose spot had looked safe at the preliminary count on Tuesday.

Despite her razor-tight loss, Segat graciously received the news, smiling and greeting supporters by name.

“It’s exciting—talk about a horse race,” Segat joked with election officials.

Meanwhile, Segat’s campaign manager Donny Dailey was already asking election officials for details about pursuing a recount in the race where his candidate lost by six votes.

“As soon as we can get the criteria on which to pursue a recount, that’s the route we’re going to take,” Dailey said.

According to Teresa S. Neighbor, executive director of the Election Commission, a petition signed by 50 registered voters who support a recount must be filed within three business days in order for the ballot count to be redone.

The final counts had a seven-vote span between the elected and defeated, with incumbent Nancy Walser at 2220, challenger Richard Harding, Jr. at 2219, and Segat trailing at 2213.

Tuesday’s preliminary totals showed that Segat had won, while Walser looked to have lost her seat.

When they heard the news that their candidate had officially prevailed, Walser’s campaign managers gave each other double high-fives and called her on a cell phone.

“She had to go to her daughter’s soccer practice,” said Richard Freierman, one of Walser’s managers. “She’s going to be a lot happier than she was last night.”

In the City Council race, with a boost yesterday from the ballots that needed to be counted by hand, Councillor Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 successfully edged out local activist John Pitkin by 59 votes for the ninth seat on the council. After a preliminary count Tuesday night, Reeves had held only a 12-vote lead.

Reeves, who said he was “not nervous, but simply waiting for a total,” hugged his campaign manager Jubi D. Headley when he heard the news.

In the weeks preceding the election, pundits speculated that challenger candidate E. Denise Simmons, who had previously served on the School Committee, would take Reeves’ black voting base and unseat him, while her absence from the School Committee race would leave that body without a black member.

Two black candidates—Alan C. Price and Harding—were elected to the School Committee, however.

And Headley didn’t think having two black council candidates should put one in jeopardy of losing, he said.

“Our position always was we didn’t understand why that had to be a question,” Headley said. “Cambridge is not a town where ethnicity matters more than someone’s capacity to serve.”

Pitkin told Segat, “We’re in the same boat,” but said the 59-vote margin in the council race was too large for a recount.

“I’m going to get some rest and take a deep breath,” Pitkin said, stopping to shake hands with the winners. “I gave it my best shot.”

—Staff writer Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at dorgan@fas.harvard.edu.