Photo courtesy Lowell TeleMedia

The drawing determining in which order candidates names will appear on the ballot has been completed, and the field is set for Lowell’s September 9 Preliminary Election.

Three races, involving ten candidates, will appear on ballots that will be available for election day voting, along with in-person early or mail in voting.

Director of Elections, Will Rosenberry, conducted the drawing in the Mayor’s Reception Room at City Hall Friday. Candidates and the public were invited to attend, and the proceedings were also broadcast on Lowell Telemedia.

By law, the order in which names appear on a preliminary ballot are drawn at random, while in the general election, incumbents in the respective races appear first, in alphabetical order, followed by challengers in alphabetical order as well.

Photo courtesy Lowell TeleMedia

Conventional wisdom holds that having a candidate’s name at the top of the ballot is an advantage, and that was very likely the case under the city’s old at-large system, where if wasn’t uncommon to have dozens of people running in a preliminary.

That advantage is likely mitigated under the new hybrid system of government that features far fewer individuals running in both the at-large and district contests. To date, there have never been a preliminary at-large contest, and the most candidates appearing in a preliminary district race is four.

With the dust settled and names randomly drawn yesterday, here’s the order each candidate’s name will be printed in the District 3 (Belvidere), District 7 (the Acre) and District 8 (Upper Highlands) section of the preliminary ballot:

Rosenberry tells InsideLowell he anticipates having the printed ballots in his hands no later than August 25, though he’s hopefully they’ll arrive the prior week, and will immediately get them out to voters who have requested mail-in ballots.