Everett To Recount Primary Votes

In the latest bout of an ongoing tussle for a State Senate seat that began in January, Democratic contender Timothy R. Flaherty has filed paperwork asking for a partial recount of votes cast in last Tuesday’s primary.

On the evening of the primary last week, Flaherty called his opponent Sal N. DiDomenico to concede, Flaherty’s spokeswoman Dorie R. Clark told The Crimson at the time.

Yesterday, however, the State House News Service reported that Flaherty had asked for a recount of some votes cast in Everett, DiDomenico’s hometown—and that the city will recount its ballots at 8 a.m. on Saturday, in a process open to public viewing.

Clark confirmed that Flaherty requested a recount in Everett but told The Crimson that the Flaherty campaign no longer desires the recount to take place.  She stated, “Paperwork was initially filed but we are not presently requesting a recount,” and refused to elaborate further.

About 76 percent of voters in Everett cast their ballots for DiDomenico, who previously served as a City Councillor in the town.

In contrast, Flaherty, a Cambridge lawyer, took the majority of the votes in the parts of Boston, Cambridge, Revere, and Somerville that fall into the Middlesex, Suffolk, and Essex Senate district. Though he won Chelsea by 20 votes and Saugus by 117, DiDomenico’s presumptive victory rests heavily on his performance in Everett, the source of 46 percent of his total votes.

Overall, DiDomenico beat Flaherty by 190 votes out of 13,828 cast, according to unofficial tallies released by the Boston Globe.

In April, both men ran for the same seat in a special primary, after former State Senator Anthony D. Galluccio resigned the seat upon his imprisonment in January. Of the six candidates in April’s Democratic primary, DiDomenico emerged victorious, edging out runner-up Flaherty by about 135 votes.

Flaherty requested a recount on the night of the April primary but renounced that demand four days later. Instead, he said, he would run against DiDomenico again when the seat came up for reelection in the fall, following a normal election timetable. The victorious Democrat, presumably DiDomenico, will face Republican candidate Barbara T. Bush in the November general election.

—Staff writer Julie M. Zauzmer can be reached at jzauzmer@college.harvard.edu.