Voting Information

The City Election will be held on Tuesday, November 3^rd 2009. Everyone is urged to get out and vote that day, as the results of this election may well determine the future of our City.

First of all, if anyone needs assistance in finding his/her voting location, you can click here.

There are 3 races (Lowell City Council, Lowell School Committee and Greater Lowell Technical High School Committee) and one referendum (Choice Voting).

There are 21 candidates on the ballot for 9 positions on the City Council. You may vote for up to 9 candidates, and each vote counts equally. (You may vote for fewer than 9 if you wish to declare your preference for a smaller number of candidates) Ordinarily there would be only 18 candidates on the ballot, but the majority of the city councilors voted to waive the Preliminary Election which would have reduced the field to the 18 highest vote-getters in that election. In adopting the waiver, the incumbent councilors added to their advantage of having their names listed first on the ballot by increasing the number of challengers on the final ballot, thereby somewhat diluting the anti-incumbent vote among the challengers.

There are 7 candidates on the ballot for 6 positions on the Lowell School Committee. You may vote for up to 6 candidates, and each vote counts equally.

There are 3 candidates on the ballot for 2 positions on the Greater Lowell Tech School Committee. You may vote for up to 2 candidates, and each vote counts equally.

The choice voting referendum (website here) is a “yes” or “no” vote, and its approval would result in a Lowell charter change to the voting system to implement preferential voting. (With preferential voting the voter would rank his selections with “1” being the most preferred, and subsequent numbers being lower ranked up to the total allowed for each race.) The candidates would be elected when their number of “1” votes exceeded a threshold calculated from the total number of ballots cast. Since there would be an insufficient number of successful candidates based on the initial count, successive rounds of counting would be executed eliminating the lowest candidate and providing the second selection on his/her “1” ballots the vote of that ballot. This process would continue until a sufficient number of candidates passed the threshold). If approved, this method would be implemented in a future election and not affect the results of any race in the current election.

Eligible Candidate List

2009 Lowell City Council Candidates

In the order they will appear on the ballot on November 3, 2009. Those in bold have been endorsed by Move Lowell Forward PAC.

Kevin P. Broderick (Incumbent)
Edward "Bud" Caulfield (Incumbent)
Rodney M. Elliott (Incumbent)
Alan W. Kazanjian (Incumbent)
William F. Martin Jr. (Incumbent)
Armand P. Mercier (Incumbent)
Rita M. Mercier (Incumbent)
James L. Milinazzo (Incumbent)
Paul N. Belley
Ryan J. Berard
Franky D. Descoteaux
Frederick J. Doyle
Curtis E. Freeman
Jose M. Gabriel
Syed M. Hussain
David M. Koch
Joseph M. Mendonca
Patrick O. Murphy
Benjamin T. Opara
Raymond T. Weicker
James I. Wojas

2009 Lowell School Committee Candidates (endorsements not yet made)

David J. Conway (Incumbent)
Jacqueline Doherty (Incumbent)
Regina M. Faticanti (Incumbent)
John J. Leahy (Incumbent)
James Leary (Incumbent)
Connie A. Martin (Incumbent)
Alison Laraba

2009 Greater Lowell Regional Technical School Committee Candidates (endorsements not yet made)

Michael J. Hayden (Incumbent)
George W. O'Hare (Incumbent)
Fred W. Bahou

Latest PAC News

MLF Releases Set of Considerations for City Manager Contract

Move Lowell Forward PAC has released a document entitled Considerations for a City Manager Contract for the City Of Lowell, MA (download PDF here). The document is a set of ideas based around the PAC's stated mission, on ways a City Manager contact might incorporate goals and measurements in the evaluations that could help determine a performance-based contract with the City Manager.

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