Vineyard voters in the state election this week overwhelmingly said
yes to a study of their county charter and swept two new members onto
the Dukes County commission, but expressing a measured mandate for
change, also returned two incumbents to the regional governing board.

The last day to register to vote in Massachusetts was Wednesday, and the deadline saw a flurry of activity in town halls across the Island.

“I’m working fast and furious,” reported Edgartown town clerk Wanda Williams yesterday morning. Ms. Williams said nearly 60 new voters registered in Edgartown on Wednesday. Because she is still entering figures, the town clerk was unable to report the new total number of registered voters in town at press time.

It jumps out at you. In paragraph thirteen of an article written by Mara Liasson in July 1976, then a Vineyard Gazette intern: “Right now in the up-Island swamps the bushes are covered with heavy clusters of cream-colored flowers and purple berries.”

Of course, by the time an elderberry bush bears berries, its flowers tend to be long gone.

After the polling irregularities in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election, which saw George W. Bush come to office, David Earnhart did nothing. But when it was repeated in 2004, he could not let it pass again.

“A lot of people were angry in 2004,” Mr. Earnhart said this week from his office in Nashville. “But where most everybody else moved on, I didn’t.”

For 60 years the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy championed many liberal causes, from immigration reform to civil rights, but he regarded national health care reform as the cause of his life. After his death in August, many Democrats adopted the slogan “Win one for Teddy,” to revise their party’s flagging efforts for national health care reform.

Vineyard voters will go to the polls to cast ballots in unusually close elections at the federal, state and local levels on Tuesday.

The closest of them, and one of the hottest contests in the nation, is the race for the 10th congressional district which includes the Cape and Islands. The most recent polling puts the seat, vacant due to the retirement of Democratic Cong. William Delahunt, as too close to call.

Vineyard voters stood decisively for Democratic candidate and state attorney general Martha Coakley in Tuesday’s special election, but it was Republican state Sen. Scott Brown who staged an unexpected surge to win the U.S. Senate Seat left vacant by the death of liberal leader Edward M. Kennedy.

Statewide, voters split 52 per cent to Mr. Brown, 47 per cent to Ms. Coakley.

Chilmark voters elected a new selectman, pledged money for studying town ponds and approved a hefty budget hike at the annual town meeting and election this week.

Voters elected real estate agent and Chilmark Store owner Bill Rossi for a three year term to the board of selectmen on Wednesday. Mr. Rossi won with 186 votes. He succeeds longtime selectman Frank Fenner, who did not seek reelection after four terms. A late write-in campaign by Alan Porter earned him 54 votes.