With Auxiliary Ballots Counted, David Weinstein Set to Return to Cambridge School Committee

In a shakeup following the first round of preliminary results in the Cambridge elections, incumbent David J. Weinstein won back his seat on the School Committee after auxiliary ballot counts were announced Friday evening.

The additional ballot count resulted in Weinstein veering ahead of challenger Eugenia B. Schraa Huh ’04 — by just 95 ballots — to take the seat on the committee. In the first round of preliminary results, Weinstein was just 115 ballots behind Schraa Huh, who was the last to be elected in the count.

Along with the next set of preliminary votes being counted, the city announced that Tuesday’s preliminary results contained a number of ballots used to test the City’s polling infrastructure, which have now been removed from the count by the Cambridge Election Commission.

The inclusion of invalid ballots in Tuesday’s results “produced 2,158 additional records (632 for the City Council, 1,370 for the School Committee, and 156 for the Ballot Question),” city spokesperson Jeremy C. Warnick wrote in an email announcing Friday’s updated vote count.

Weinstein’s win is the only change from Tuesday’s preliminary results for the City Council and School Committee.

The latest count that lands Weinstein ahead of Schraa in the race for School Committee is still unofficial, as there are provisional and mailed overseas absentee ballots that remain uncounted. Official results will likely not be announced until next Friday, Nov. 14, at which point, by state law, the election commission is required to have counted all remaining ballots.

An educator and parent in the district, Weinstein has served on the School Committee for six years. Weinstein said that his experience as an educator informs his collaborative approach to policy and, in a next term, he hopes to tackle big issues like advanced learning policy and ongoing achievement gaps.

Weinstein will be reelected alongside two of his colleagues, Elizabeth C. P. Hudson and Richard Harding Jr., and will be joined by three challengers in the race who secured seats: Luisa de Paula Santos, Caitlin E. Dube ’05, and Arjun K. Jaikumar. A majority of incumbents who ran for reelection have now secured a seat, after the previous round of results landed on four challengers and two incumbents.

One current School Committee member, Rachel B. Weinstein, opted not to run for reelection.

This year’s School Committee election saw the highest number of candidates in over 20 years with 18 people running for a seat. David Weinstein’s victory would make him the third incumbent to reclaim a seat over 13 challengers. Many of those challengers said they were motivated to run because of the previous school committee’s decisions, including the vote to remove former Superintendent Victoria L. Greer, the decision to close Kennedy-Longfellow elementary school, and, most recently, the district's superintendent search, which received backlash from parents and staff.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at claire.michal@thecrimson.com.