Two challengers in the Cambridge City Council race stood ahead of one of the incumbents after first-place votes were counted from today's elections-but under Cambridge's unusual voting system, it remained too early to determine whether the challengers would earn one of the nine seats on the council.

Challengers Craig Kelley and Sam Seidel ranked ahead of incumbent David P. Maher in the count of first-place votes, according to members of the Cambridge Election Commission, who announced the tallies around 10 p.m. tonight to the candidates and Cambridge political observers gathered at the city's Senior Center for the biannual vote count.

Under Cambridge's system of proportional representation, voters rank candidates in order of preference. Once first-place votes are counted, any candidate who has reached a predetermined quota is elected, and his or her extra votes are redistributed to the next candidate listed on each ballot. Candidates with the fewest first-place votes are eliminated and their votes are also redistributed.

After first-round votes were tallied tonight, incumbent Anthony D. Galluccio, the perennial top vote-getter on the council, was the only candidate who reached the quota of about 1,600 votes needed to be elected.
With all 33 precincts reported, the number of votes that each candidate received, out of a total of 15,994 votes cast:

Anthony D. Galluccio (incumbent): 1,980

Marjorie C. Decker (incumbent): 1,505

Michael A. Sullivan (incumbent): 1,450

Henrietta Davis (incumbent): 1,446

Timothy J. Toomey, Jr. (incumbent): 1,418

E. Denise Simmons (incumbent): 1,320

Brian P. Murphy '86-'87 (incumbent): 1,229

Kenneth E. Reeves '72 (incumbent): 1,191

Craig Kelley (challenger): 1,033

Sam Seidel (challenger): 967

David P. Maher (incumbent): 896

Jesse Gordon (challenger): 615

Lawrence J. Adkins (challenger): 239

Bill Hees (challenger): 195

Andre Green (challenger): 178

Robert LaTremouille (challenger): 116

Robert L. Hall, Sr. (challenger): 75

James Condit (challenger): 41

-Check thecrimson.com for updates throughout the night.