by Eva Zacharakis, News Editor
Julie Wang
Sophomore Julie Wang was one of 54 finalists in Google’s 12th annual “Doodle for Google” competition. A panel of Google doodlers and three guest judges — Lilly Singh, an award winning entertainer and creator; Rodney Robinson, 2019 National Teacher of the Year; and Mari Andrew, Illustrator and Best-Selling Author — judged her work. While she is the top submission from Massachusetts, she did not make it to the national finals.
Ranked-choice voting
Voter Choice Massachusetts, the campaign sponsoring the Ranked-Choice Voting initiative, succeeded in putting Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) on the Nov. 3 ballot. RCV is a process in which voters pick their top 3 candidates and rank them from most favorite to third favorite. If a candidate gets over 50% of the first-choice votes, they win.
If no candidate gets over 50% of the votes, the candidate with the smallest percentage of votes will be eliminated, and everyone who picked the eliminated candidate as their first choice will then have their second choices redistributed. This process will continue until one candidate has over 50%. Supporters of RCV say that it puts more power into the hands of voters and ensures that everyone feels as though their vote matters.
Voter Choice collected the necessary 80,239 signatures required by Article 48 of the MA Constitution to file the bill with local officials, and, after being approved by the Secretary of States’ Office, succeeded in getting RCV to the legislature for consideration. However, the bill failed to pass through the legislature in May, and Voter Choice was required to collect at least 13,374 more signatures before July, which they succeeded in doing. The push for RCV came after its implementation in Maine in 2018 and in the Massachusetts towns of Cambridge, Amherst and Easthampton.
Primary Election Results
- September 1st
- http://www.newtonma.gov/documents/election/2020%20Elections/Official%20Results%20-%20David.pdf
- https://whdh.com/news/judge-orders-clerks-to-continue-counting-ballots-in-massachusetts-4th-congressional-district-race-2/
- https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/09/02/massachusetts-4th-congressional-race-william-galvin-seeks-court-order-to-complete-ballot-counting/
In response to Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin’s order, a Suffolk Superior Court judge authorized local election officials to continue counting ballots from the Sept. 1 Massachusetts Primary Election the following day due to the influx of mail-in ballots. While Jesse Mermell won in Newton, Jake Auchinchloss emerged victorious as the Democratic nominee for the House of Representatives seat in the Massachusetts 4th Congressional District by a margin of only 2,033 votes. With 55.4% of the vote, Ed Markey won the race against Joe Kennedy for the Democratic nominee for Senate.
