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Mass. Secretary Of State Worried About Low Turnout For Senate Election

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The top election official in Massachusetts says he is extremely concerned about voter turnout for next Tuesday’s special election for U.S. Senate.

Secretary of State William Galvin points to low demand for absentee ballots. About 14,000  fewer have been requested to date than for the special senate election three years ago. Galvin speculates there is more attention on  the end of school, the Whitey Bulger trial, and the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final than on the contest between  Democratic Congressman Ed Markey and Republican newcomer Gabriel Gomez.  In Springfield, Election Commissioner Gladys Oyola says there is more interest in the  upcoming casino referendum.

The deadline to vote absentee in the Senate election is Monday at noon.

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.