The District 7 race was separated by the thinnest of margins, while the mayoral race was more of a blowout.
Following challenges by losing candidates, election officials in Boston will oversee recounts in two key races this weekend.
One series of recounts concerns the crowded race to succeed Tania Fernandes Anderson as the representative of District 7 on the City Council. The other recount effort was initiated by the mayoral candidate who placed third in the preliminary election.
In the District 7 race, 11 candidates ran for two spots in the general election. Said Ahmed and Miniard Culpepper came out ahead, but just barely. The top-five vote-getters were all within around 100 votes of each other. The third-place finisher, Mavrick Afonso, received just 20 votes less than Culpepper.
Afonso successfully gathered enough signatures to file recount petitions in four of the six wards located in District 7, according to the city of Boston’s election department. A few of his fellow candidates joined him in pushing for a recount.
“This isn’t about politics, it’s about protecting our democracy and ensuring the outcome truly reflects the will of the people,” Afonso wrote in an Instagram post recently about his effort to seek a recount.
In the district 7 race, recounts will take place in wards 4, 9, 12, and 13.
In the mayoral race, community activist Domingos DaRosa pursued a longshot bid to oust Mayor Michelle Wu. The race mostly centered on Wu and philanthropist Josh Kraft. Wu handily beat Kraft, who dropped out after the preliminary and removed his name from the general ballot.
In this scenario, the third-place finisher usually gets bumped up to the general election ballot. But this can only happen if that candidate receives at least as many votes as the number of signatures they gathered to get on the ballot in the first place. Mayoral candidates need to gather 3,000 signatures to enter the race. DaRosa ultimately only received 2,409 votes.
DaRosa is hoping that a recount turns up enough votes to put him over the 3,000-vote threshold and allow his name to be placed on the general election ballot alongside Wu in November. If this doesn’t happen, Wu’s name will be the only one on the ballot.
“Why do you even need to have more than X amount of votes if you were already on the ballot? I was already on the ballot. It’s new to everyone,” he told Boston.com earlier this week. “This leaves Boston in a very awkward position.”
The elections department certified recount petitions from DaRosa for just five of the city’s 22 wards. Recounts will take place in wards 4, 8, 9, 16, and 18.
The recounts are scheduled to take place this Saturday at 9 a.m.