Democratic Sweep in Revere defeats Brown, boosts Obama

It was a Democratic sweep on Tuesday in Revere, as one of the largest voter turnouts in recent memory overwhelmingly voted for President Barack Obama and Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren.

For the presidential race, Obama won in Revere by a margin of 65 percent to Challenger Mitt Romney’s 33 percent. The Democratic ticket received a total of 11,141 votes, and the Republicans got 5,560.

That, of course, was not a real big surprise given the demographics of the City and the state.

The real contested race was that of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, who many believed had a chance to win Revere again – as he surprisingly took Revere during his special election campaign three years ago.

It wasn’t to be this time around though.

Like the rest of the state, Brown got a drubbing in Revere despite what seemed to be a great deal of support on the western side of the City in the days leading up to the election.

Warren took Revere by a vote of 59 percent to Brown’s 40 percent – almost 20 percent points.

One thing that is still yet to be determined is just what the voter turnout was.

So far, the Election Department does not have a concrete number for turnout due to some confusion with the second page of the ballot and the ballot questions that it contained. The second page seemed to cause some problem with the voting machines on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, Election Commissioner Diane Colella said it would end up being the largest turnout in years.

“It was the highest voter turnout in an election that I’ve ever been a part of and it was great,” she said on Wednesday morning. “They should all be like that.”

For the ballot questions, Revere approved the Right to Repair (Question 1) by a vote of 68 percent to 16 percent. They voted down the Assisted Suicide question (Question 2) by a vote of 36 percent to 52 percent. However, voters overwhelmingly approved the medical marijuana initiative (Question 3) by a vote of 52 percent to 38 percent.

That said, Colella indicated that there was a tremendous amount of trouble with the voting on the ballot questions. Many, she said, did not want to vote for the questions, but that move messed up the voting machines and caused a good deal of frustration. Per state law, voting machines are programmed to spit out ballots that are left blank as it is presumed to be a mistake.

“No one in the City of Revere wanted to vote on the questions,” said Colella. “People submitted ballots that were blank on the questions because they didn’t want to vote for them. That made the machines spit them out and say they’re blank. It was frustrating.”

In some minor contested races, House Speaker Bob DeLeo beat challenger Paul Caruccio in Revere by a vote of 73 percent to 16 percent. Also, State Sen. Anthony Petruccelli beat challenger Tom Dooley III in Revere by a vote of 71 percent to 14 percent.