Statewide voter turnout set to make history in 2020

By Elaine Thompson

Voter turnout for the Nov. 3 election is projected to be double the record-setting number of ballots cast in the Sept. 1 state primaries, and even exceed the historical 75% voter turnout in the 2016 election.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin said more will be known about the expected high turnout in the next week as early voting began Saturday and will continue through Oct. 30.

“I’m hopeful. It seems the level of interest is there,” Galvin said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “We had 3.3 million votes in 2016. It seems we will exceed that. We’ve seen a continuing rising number of people registering to vote.”

The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 24.

The historical voter turnout — expected as well in some other parts of the country and driven by the hotly contested presidential race — is also the result of a massive expansion of mail-in voting due to concerns about crowded polling places during the coronavirus pandemic.

Early voting was also offered this year for the first time during a primary. Nearly 1 million of the 1.7 million votes cast during the primaries were received before Sept. 1, including 814,013 by mail, making up 47.7% of all ballots cast, according to the secretary of state’s office.

About 30.6% of the 4.66 million total registered voters turned out for the primaries. It was the highest number of ballots cast in a state primary and the highest turnout as a percentage of registered voters in 30 years, according to Galvin’s office.

Absentee voting has been allowed for decades for people who met certain requirements, including being in the military on active duty and a Massachusetts citizen residing overseas on Election Day.

Voters were first allowed to request no-excuse early ballots by mail in 2016 in time for the highly contentious presidential election that featured Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Debra O’Malley, spokeswoman for the secretary of state, said the mailing time was limited to the early-voting period, so not many people took advantage of the option.

This year, the deadline was expanded and Galvin’s office mailed a vote-by-mail application to every registered voter. Previously, 3% to 5% of voters have voted by mail. So far, more than 1.7 million voters, or 37% of the state’s registered voters, have requested mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election.

Voters have until 5 p.m. Oct. 28 to request mail-in ballots, but that is also the deadline for municipal clerks to receive the applications. The post office recommends applying by Oct. 20 to ensure you get your ballot on time. The ballots must be completed and postmarked by Nov.

Drop boxes available

Galvin said after all ballots cast on Election Day are counted, books will remain open for three days for the domestically mailed-in ballots, and an additional seven days for military and votes from overseas. Those ballots also must be postmarked by Nov. 3.

Galvin said the local mail-in ballots and in-person ballots will likely decide election outcomes. Asked about more restrictive voting methods in other states, particularly in Texas where the governor has limited drop boxes to one per county, Galvin said it doesn’t sound “logical” to him.

“We’ve done the opposite here. Our policy is to expand, not restrict” drop boxes,” Galvin said, pointing out that municipalities are encouraged to place the boxes in secure places and that they be monitored.

“If you’re concerned about drop boxes and the postal service ... there’s some reason to believe there could be some concern there, you can also drop your mail-in ballot off at the early voting site. That’s a better alternative. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Having multiple voting options is important, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, Galvin said, but it has been a monumental challenge. Nearly 18,000 mail-in ballots for the Sept. 1 primaries were initially rejected, mostly due to human error or lateness.

“Those ballots were not ‘thrown out’ and in most cases, the voter would have been sent a second ballot or voted in person,” O’Malley said in an email.

She said a little more than 3,000 of the ballots were rejected for failed delivery, which generally indicates that the voter contacted the municipal clerk to request a second ballot because they didn’t receive the first one. That was a common issue with voters moving after applying for their ballots, O’Malley said.

Another 1,800 ballots lacked a signature, which would have resulted in a second ballot being mailed to the voter. About 1,770 ballots were rejected because the voter had already voted in person during early voting when their mail-in ballot arrived. And some ballots were not received by the Sept. 1 deadline.

Mail-in ballots deadline

Municipal clerks have until 5 p.m. on Nov. 6 to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 and received in their office by Nov. 6. This is unlike with the primary, when the name of the winner had to be immediately sent out to be printed on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Alex Psilakis, policy manager for the bipartisan nonprofit voting rights advocacy group MassVOTE, said the state and municipalities have done a good job with the vote-by-mail process with all the increased work entailed. But there are still some concerns.

He pointed out that in Wayland, some voters did not receive the correct ballots for their precinct. Brookline mailed the wrong party ballots ahead of the primary. Haverhill mailed out Nov. 3 ballots with instructions that they were due by Sept. 1 at 8 p.m.

In Franklin, Town Clerk Teresa Burr resigned after forgetting 3,000 mail-in ballots in a vault that had been processed in advance but were not sent to the polling places on Election Day to be counted. In her resignation letter, Burr said she was resigning to reestablish confidence with voters in the community in their elections.

The glitch resulted in a delay in announcing Jake Auchincloss, a former Marine the winner in a 4th Congressional District Democratic runoff to succeed U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III.

Auchincloss defeated Jesse Mermell by a little more than 2,000 votes. He will face Republican Julie A. Hall, an Attleboro City Council member, in the Nov. 3 election.

“Each time there has been an error, the cities and towns have reached out to voters. That means that’s more work that needs to be done, more money that needs to be spent and more time lost. That’s why we want to avoid those situations as often as we can,” Psilakis said, citing the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots being sent out.

“Adjusting to that is a ton of work for cities and towns. It’s something they can adjust to over time.”

Anthony Dell’Aera, an assistant professor of political science focusing on American politics and public policy at Worcester State University, said voters turned out in record numbers for the primaries because of the extensive early-voting and mail-in ballot opportunities coupled with the high interest in the Democratic Senate primary between Sen. Ed Markey and Kennedy.

With that settled, some voters might think it’s not important to vote in the presidential election because the Democrat will get the state’s electoral vote.

“The reality is that even if we were to assume that, which one should not do, there are still down ballot races and ballot questions that are of utmost importance,” Dell’Aera said.

Dell’Aera pointed out Question 2, ranked-choice voting, which would change the way election winners are determined. The system allows voters to select one or more candidates by order of preference. If no candidate received more than 50% of the vote as the first-place choice, the candidate who received the fewest first-place votes would be eliminated, and the votes for that candidate would then get redirected to whichever candidate was listed as the voter’s second choice.

After that re-tabulation, if a candidate has now received over 50% of the vote, a winner is declared. Otherwise, the process of eliminating the lowest remaining candidate and redistributing those ballots based on the ranking of the candidates is repeated until a single candidate receives a majority.

“The effect of this system is that the winning candidate will be more representative of the overall will of the voting public because it reduces the possibility of a third-party candidate tipping the election to a candidate who has the support of only a minority of the voters and who third-party voters would least want to see elected,” Dell’Aera said.

Dell’Aera said if ranked-choice voting was used in the six-way 4th Congressional District Democratic primary race, the outcome may have been different. He said that Auchincloss won by about 25% of the vote.

Information about that ballot initiative and Question 1: Motor Vehicle Mechanical Data is available here.

This story originally appeared in the Telegram. Check it out here!