Graham-Thompson Election Exceeds Voting Technology

When Alvin E. Thompson won the Democratic nomination for state representave from Cambridge, his opponent, six-term incumbent Saundra Graham acknowledged that she had taken her victory for granted. Last Tuesday, Thompson faced tough opposition from Graham--even though this time her name didn't appear on the ballot.

Because Cambridge's voting machines were illequipped to deal with Graham's write-in/sticker campaign, widespread confusion enveloped the election, with each side accusing the other of sabotage.

When the results showed Thompson the winner by a decisive margin, however, only one side was making the charges.

Graham said on Tuesday night, as the returns came into her Central Square campaign headquarters, that she would "absolutely" challenge the election, asking for a revote. Although her campaign provided a litany of charges of improper voting procedures--from the disqualification of votes clearly meant for her to the inability of poll workers to explain the mechanics of her "sticker" campaign--Graham has yet to file any formal charges with the Cambridge Election Commission.

Graham campaign officials said they are still mulling over the evidence before deciding finally whether to contest Thompson's victory. Under state law, Graham has 10 days from Election Day to ask for a recount, and 30 days to mount a legal challenge of results. Currently, the 16,536 city ballots sit in a vault.

Meanwhile, officials in Thompson's campaign said that, despite any problems there might have been at the polls, Thompson's large margin of victory--8485 to 5181--established beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the community's favorite.

"From what I can tell, it was a fair election, and the people spoke two to one against her," said Thompson's campaign chair, Lester P. Lee, Jr. on Wednesday.

The contest for Graham's State House seat has produced bitter accusations on both sides and sharply divided the East Cambridge neighborhoods that make up the 28th Middlesex district. Thompson charged that Graham had lost touch with her community and become inaccessible over the course of her 17-year political career.

In response, Graham has tried to portray Thompson, a truant officer with a long recond of community activism but no experience in elected office, as a friend of developers and an opponent of rent-control and affordable housing.

The present disputes, however, center on Graham's use of stickers to assist supporters in voting for her. But instead simplifying matters, the sticker campaign appears to have been the prime cause of widespread chaos at the polls Tuesday.

Cambridge voting machines, like many across the country, use a computer-scanned punch-card ballot. Voters place the card underneath a "ballot book" containing the names of the candidates and punch numbered holes out of the card with a metal needle.

The generic name for such systems is "vote-a-matic," according to William C. Kimberling, the deputy director of the National Clearinghouse on Election Admisistration. Vote-a-matic machines are by far the most prevalent system of voting in this country, used by 36 percent of the electorate, Kimberling said.

To register a vote for a write-in candidate like Graham on a vote-a-matic machine, voters have to leave the ballot blank, and write the candidate's name, address, and office sought on the ballot wrapper. Graham's stickers, which bear the same information were intended to be placed on this envelope.

But in several precincts, voters improperly placed stickers over Thompson's name in the ballot book. When poll workers tried to remove the stickers, the pages underneath ripped, and several had to be replaced.

Because Thompson's name was covered by hers, Graham argues that some voters may have punched the card--and voted for Thompson--thinking they were voting for her. Graham's campaign acknowledges that some of these stickers might have been misplaced in ignorance, but said some of it may have been the result of deliberate tampering by Thompson supporters.

"There were some honest mistakes, and then there were some mischievious mistakes which happened because people wanted them to happen," Graham said Tuesday night.

During the election, Thompson campaign manager Francis R. Stone claimed that misplaced stickers were the work of Graham supporters, who he says used tape, black ink--and stickers--to deface Thompson's name in the ballot book, making it appear as if there were no Democratic nominee.

In addition to improprieties at the polls, Graham's campaign officials also charge that votes were inaccurately counted. They say election officials in some precincts removed stickers incorrectly placed on the ballots themselves, counting them as blanks or as votes for Thompson.

"This is one of the disadvantages of stickers," said Kimberling. "That's why many states don't allow them, because people don't know what the hell they're doing."

If Graham takes her complaints about the voting procedures to court, she may have a hard time proving her case. Although Thompson received little more than 50 percent of all ballots cast--leaving open the possibility that nearly half of the voters intended to vote for Graham--in past elections it has been common for voters not to express a preference in local races.

The best case scenario for Graham would be that the 2870 blank ballots--more than 17 percent of the total ballots cast--at some point were marked with a preference for her. Add to this total the number of Thompson votes which Graham claims might have been meant for her, and the outcome could go either way.

The number of blank ballots this year, however, is well within the range of past Cambridge state representative elections. When Graham ran unopposed in 1986, for example, more than 32 percent of the voters left their ballots blank. Even in contested elections, it is not uncommon for 10 to 15 percent of the ballots to be left blank.