If Alejandra St. Guillen won last month’s election, she’d become both the first lesbian and the first Latina to serve on Boston City Council. But after yesterday’s third recount of her very tight race, it appears that her rival Julia Mejia will become Boston’s first Latina city councilor—by just one vote.
Monday’s tally is currently being reviewed and the decision may yet be sent to state court for a final decision.
Whatever the outcome, St. Guillen told the Boston Globe that “A City Council with either of us on it is a victory for Boston. We will support each other, because we believe in the same values.”
Reported the Boston Globe:
Julia Mejia, a first-time candidate for office, won the city’s fourth and final at-large seat, beating Alejandra St. Guillen 22,492 votes to 22,491 votes. Mejia welled up with tears as the Boston Election Commission announced the result, narrowing her initial eight-vote win down to one.
St. Guillen had left just before the vote tally was announced to pick up her child, after several hours of legal wrangling over disputed ballots. Her team said she is reviewing the tally and her options, including whether to challenge the outcome in state court.
Mejia told reporters at City Hall moments after the result was announced that she was prepared for a legal challenge — “We should be prepared for a round three, right? The party continues,” she said — even as she was soaking in the victory and considered the matter settled.
“It really goes to reinforce the message that we’ve been promoting all along, that every vote matters,” said Mejia, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic and community activist, and the first Latina elected to the City Council. “I think now we have an amazing lesson to share with the city of Boston, how important they are in this process.”
She added, “I feel relieved because we worked so hard and because there was so many people who joined our campaign, because they wanted to believe in something.”
Earlier Monday, hours before the final tally was announced, St. Guillen and Mejia shared moments embracing each other and reflecting on the three long days of the recount, a tedious process of examining 67,011 ballots, on which each voter could choose up to four at-large candidates from the eight who advanced in the September preliminary election. …
The result could serve as a coda to a dramatic, monthslong campaign that spiraled into chaos on Election Night, when St. Guillen conceded the fourth and final at-large seat to Mejia with the understanding that she was behind by 200 votes. That same night, final results showed her down by only 10 votes, and the Election Commission ultimately determined she lost by eight votes, after counting provisional and military ballots.
Both St. Guillen and Mejia requested the recount, each collecting more than 50 signatures from voters in each of the city’s 22 wards for a citywide review.
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