Hoping to join Wu on ballot, third-place mayoral candidate pursues recount

Politics

Domingos DaRosa said he was hoping recounts would turn up enough votes to place him on the ballot in the wake of Josh Kraft’s exit from the mayoral race.

Domingos DaRosa, the community activist and Boston mayoral candidate who finished a distant third in last week’s preliminary election, is seeking a recount in order to have his name placed on the general election ballot in November. 

DaRosa’s effort was spurred by Josh Kraft’s decision to bow out of the race. Mayor Michelle Wu drubbed Kraft, her most notable and well-funded opponent, in the preliminary. 

Kraft officially withdrew his name from the ballot on Friday, according to Boston’s election department. State law dictates that he be replaced by the next-highest vote-getter, as long as that person “receives a number of votes at least equal to the number of signatures required by law to place his name on the preliminary election ballot.”

DaRosa, however, did not meet that requirement. Mayoral candidates in Boston need to collect 3,000 signatures to get on the preliminary ballot, and DaRosa ultimately received only 2,409 votes, according to the city’s unofficial election results.

So DaRosa is hoping a recount turns up enough votes to meet the 3,000-vote threshold and get him placed on the general election ballot alongside Wu. The mayor’s brand of progressive politics and her deep opposition to the Trump administration is widely popular in Boston, and she would continue to be the overwhelming favorite in such a scenario. 

Candidates must collect 50 signatures from each ward in which they want to pursue a recount. DaRosa spent all weekend collecting signatures, he told Boston.com in an interview Tuesday. He gathered enough signatures in 10 of Boston’s 22 wards to file paperwork for recounts, and submitted that paperwork Monday afternoon just before the deadline. 

“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 said. “This leaves Boston in a very awkward position.”

DaRosa said he was waiting to hear back from the city. A spokesperson for the Election Department said Monday that officials were working to certify the election results. When contacted Tuesday, they said that there would be an imminent update for the public on the topic of recounts. No update had been issued as of mid-afternoon. 

A spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin’s office said Tuesday that she could not provide an update on the timeline of that process. 

After ballots ran low at precincts across the city and major problems with communications popped up during the presidential election last fall, Galvin’s office ordered an overhaul of Boston’s Election Department. It is currently under state receivership. 

A recount could also play out in the crowded field to succeed former District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson. The results in that race were incredibly close: the first-place candidate and the fifth-place candidate were only separated by 101. Eleven candidates ran in total, and only two can proceed to the general election. Multiple District 7 candidates filed recount petitions this week. 

DaRosa said that the more than 21,000 residents who cast a vote for Kraft during the preliminary are now being “shortchanged” by Kraft’s decision to remove himself from the general election ballot. DaRosa hopes to fill that void, he said, and described how the election was an uphill battle for him. 

“I’ve been marginalized since day one,” he said. 

DaRosa also criticized members of the media, saying that they were responsible for framing the race as a contest only between Wu and Kraft. He and Robert Cappucci, the fourth candidate in the mayoral race, deserved more coverage and consideration, he said. 

“It was them two versus us two,” DaRosa said. “Mainstream media did a disservice to the city of Boston as a whole.”