Who’s on the ballot now?
The District 7 field expanded Thursday, as Boston Election Department officials continued counting signatures. Here’s are the nine candidates on the ballot in the city’s most hotly contested district as of May 22:
Said Abdikarim
Mavrick Afonso
Said Ahmed
Wawa Bell
Miniard Culpepper
Samuel Hurtado
Natalie Juba-Sutherland
Jerome King
Roy Owens Sr.
In the race for the four at-large seats on the Council, incumbent Henry Santana and challengers former District 3 Councilor Frank Baker and Will Onuoha were certified, bringing the number of candidates to nine and triggering preliminary balloting in the race. In addition to the above mentioned candidates, here’s who else is on the ballot:
Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune
Councilor Julia Mejia
Councilor Erin Murphy
Alexandra Valdez
Yves Mary Jean
Mavin Dee Mathalier
In other districts, incumbents will face challengers. To wit:
District 1 Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata will face a challenge from Ricardo M. Rodriguez. District 4 Councilor Brian Worrell will face a challenge from Juwan Khiry Skeens. District 5 Councilor Enrique Pepen will face challengers Sharon Hinton and Winston Pierre. District 6 Councilor Benjamin Jacob Weber will face challenger Steven Ray Berry. District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon will face challenger Pilar Ortiz.
Random observations
- On the current Council, seven out of 13 incumbents are women. The challengers who made the ballot are overwhelmingly male — just four out of the 20 are women.
- The number of people who failed to turn in signatures this year is significant. Just 9 of 18 candidates turned in the 1,500 signatures needed to secure a spot on the ballot for the Council's four at-large seats. Similarly, just 9 of the 17 candidates for the soon-to-be vacated District 7 seat made the 200-signature threshold for a district seat.
