Actual guidance on recounts from the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office, CLICK HERE for the 16 page guide. As the margin was about 4 percent. it appears this election would not be eligible for a recount as difference must be not more than 1/2 percent.
Editorial: Election Results Should be no Surprise and Should Teach Lessons
Election Day was this week. Some were surprised by the results. They shouldn’t have been. On the National level, the result reflected that the majority of America was not happy with the current administration in Washington because of various problems including border policy , inflation, crime, and foreign policy. Under normal circumstances if Donald Trump did not have some high negatives because of his sometimes offensive approach, the win could have been larger, more like when Ronald Reagan won 49 states. For example, Trump almost won the state of New Jersey, turning a double digit Biden lead in 2020 into a just a 5 point Harris lead in 2024. Trump did win the National popular vote, mainly because of his strategy of asking for votes everywhere. I’m hoping he’ll take this second chance and do well with it.
On the local level: Voters were faced with the choice of long-time State Representative Jonathan Zlotnik who has a perfect voting attendance record and a long list of achievements including specific help for veterans, but failed to adequately campaign, AND, Bruce Chester, a man who has run 3 times for the job, but has faced rebuke because of his alleged unethical handling of campaign finances and obvious lack of knowledge.
On Jonathan Zlotnik
A classic case of a good candidate not campaigning or taking the time to update Social Media to document his achievements. Had he done that, his vote tally would have been higher. Representative Zlotnik did do interviews with Gardner Magazine and WGAW and chronicled his achievements. A Rogue Gardner Facebook Group published many false items about Zlotnik which continued with simply made up falsities after Zlotnik won.
Zlotnik needs to campaign in his next election and post more items documenting his work. He almost lost because he didn’t do that. And it should be easy as he has a long list of successes and a history of benefiting his district. For example, Zlotnik has worked with the Montachusett Veterans Outreach Center and has helped get more housing for veterans. Zlotnik helped get much needed funding for Heywood Hospital and numerous grants for Gardner and area communities. The irony is Zlotnik often works his tail off on behalf of the public rather than wasting time on Social Media. Well, maybe take 5 minutes each day. Just a thought.
On Bruce Chester
A classic case of a deeply flawed candidate who took the time to campaign and used Social Media to a certain extent. Despite running for the office 3 times, Chester could not answer very simple questions about legislation during a WGAW interview. Voters reached out to us both anonymously and by name prior to the election. We investigated and Gardner Magazine prepared a complete report using Bruce Chester’s own words to reveal very real concerns and we also published State documents revealing the ethics issues.
While Chester claims to teach ethics, according to the state of MA, Chester exudes the exact opposite given his ongoing scrutiny and multiple troubling audits by the Office of Campaign Finance. In my opinion, Bruce Chester was by far the weaker candidate. And now, rather than gracefully accepting his loss by about 4 points, some of his more radical supporters are claiming Gardner election fraud, thus attacking the character of the dozens of good people who make elections work in the Chair City. As recounts very rarely change the vote total dramatically, it simply seems like the actions of a sore loser.