It was a Democratic sweep on Tuesday in Chelsea, as one of the largest voter turnouts in some time overwhelmingly voted for President Barack Obama and Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren.
Some 60 percent of voters officially turned out for the election, meaning that 8,594 ballots were cast.
However, City officials are contending that the turnout was much higher due to the fact that the number of registered voters in the election is believed to be artificially high. Officials said they believe that the turnout in Chelsea was somewhere around 75 percent when adjusted for what they target as the true number of registered voters.
The problem comes in that there were several thousand voters registered here that had moved away from Chelsea, but were still on the rolls.
For the presidential race, Obama won in Chelsea by a margin of 81 percent to Challenger Mitt Romney’s 18 percent. The Democratic ticket received a total of 6,760 votes, and the Republicans got 1,510.
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 the race again – as he surprisingly won the seat 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 Chelsea.
Warren took Chelsea by a vote of 75 percent to Brown’s 24 percent – more than 50 percentage points.
For the ballot questions, Chelsea approved the Right to Repair (Question 1) by a vote of 79 percent to 21 percent. They voted down the Assisted Suicide question (Question 2) by a vote of 40 percent to 60 percent. However, voters overwhelmingly approved the medical marijuana initiative (Question 3) by a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent.
In some minor contested races, State Rep. Gene O’Flaherty beat challenger and Chelsea School Committeeman Charles Klauder in Chelsea by a vote of 88 percent to 12 percent.
Congressman Michael Capuano bested Independent Karla Romero in Chelsea by a vote of 80 percent to 19 percent.
Nine other races were not contested, and victory was assured in all of those races.
There were also two non-binding ballot questions last Tuesday.
Question 4 called for cutting defense spending and keeping entitlement programs like Social Security intact. That question prevailed in Chelsea by a vote of 77 percent to 23 percent
The fifth ballot question involved whether or not marijuana should be taxed by the state in the same fashion as alcohol. It passed in Chelsea by a vote of 64 percent to 36 percent.