A “Voter Choice” initiative petition turned in to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office on Wednesday would give Massachusetts voters a chance to change to a voting system that lets voters rank their choices instead of voting for only one candidate. The change would apply to key races, including for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary and treasurer, among others, starting after January 2012.

Aaron Michlewitz won the Democratic primary today to replace Sal DiMasi, according to city election results.

Michlewitz got 2,116, compared to 1,945 for Susan Passoni, 103 for Lucy Rivera and 44 for Brian Ross. He will now face Republican David Trumbull and independent John Keith in a special election next month.

Today's the special Democratic primary to see who runs in the special election to replace Sal DiMasi in the 3rd Suffolk district.

Susan Passoni, Aaron Michlewitz, Brian Ross and Lucy Rivera face off on the Democratic side. Whoever wins will face independent John Keith and Republican David Trumbull on June 16.

Free from any primary responsibilities, and noting the battle between the North End's Michlewitz and the South End's Passoni, Keith recounts another North End/South End battle, back in the 1700s, when Protestant groups in the two neighborhoods would hold annual Pope's Day riots to see who could most show their hatred for Catholics. Fortunately, the social climate in Boston seems to have improved a bit since then.

Josh Dawson is a member of the Ward 5 Democratic Committee (Back Bay, Beacon Hill and Bay Village). And he's a bit perturbed over the way 3rd Suffolk state-rep hopeful Aaron Michlewitz may have gotten questions from a Ward 5/Ward 4 debate in advance:

... It's disappointing that our Committee's reputation could be tarnished for a short time because of this mess. As a member of the Executive Committee, I will push to have a meeting as soon as possible to discuss this situation and fix any problems with the forum/endorsement process, so we can get back to doing the things that make our Committee great ...

He also says that despite what ward Chairman Rob Whitney seemed to tell the Phoenix, neither he nor at least three other members got the questions in advance.

Because of its expansion through annexation and land reclamation, and because of the vast differences in size between its neighborhoods, making a web-ready neighborhood map of Boston is extremely difficult. Most online neighborhood maps currently available are simple line drawings or text paste-overs.

I've attempted to solve both these problems by creating a neighborhood map of Boston using Google Maps. It overlays the neighborhood boundaries onto Google's existing maps, and scales easily in and out.

Dianne Wilkerson's campaign Web site is now www.diannedelivers08.com instead of www.diannedelivers2008.com, so don't even think of going to the latter, especially since the campaign simply pulled the plug on it, rather than doing anything so radical and risky as redirecting people who click there to the new site.

On Monday, the Herald reported the old site still listed endorsements from pols who no longer back Wilkerson, now that she's no longer the Democratic nominee for the 2nd Suffolk State Senate seat. The new site lost the endorsement list, along with the "20" in the URL.

Via PolitickerMA.