Voters are going to the polls for municipal elections in Massachusetts. In the largest city in western Massachusetts, voter turnout is low.
Springfield Election Commissioner Gladys Oyola is sticking with a pre-election day prediction that just 14 percent of the city’s more than 90,000 registered voters will go to the polls today.
"It is lower than other municipal elections, lower than the most recent mayoral election we had in 2011," said Oyola.
Veteran election worker Joe Campbell, the warden for Springfield’s Ward 2 Precinct 2 polling place said turnout this morning was running just slightly ahead of the pace during the September preliminary election when a paltry 7 percent of the city’s voters cast ballots. He said it is discouraging.
" Yes, very much so," Campbell said. " Don't complain after the election if you failed to come out and pick the person you believe is best to represent you."
Topping the ballot in Springfield is a mayoral election. Domenic Sarno, the incumbent, is seeking re-election for a third time. Sarno has spent nearly eight years in the Springfield mayor’s office. He won back-to-back two-year terms before being elected to a four-year term in 2011 after the city charter was changed.
Sarno’s opponent, Sal Circosta, has never held elected office. Sarno won the preliminary election with 75 percent of the vote.
Most political observers believe the action in Springfield today is farther down the ballot. All five at-large city councilors are running for re-election and there are five challengers. There are contests for six of the eight ward council seats, with several of those races seen as very competitive.
For the council candidates who have spent months knocking on doors, speaking at forums and appearing at public events, now they must get their supporters to go to the polls.
Jesse Lederman, one of the challengers for an at-large council seat spent the day crisscrossing the city from polling place to polling place to do some last minute handshaking and deliver campaign signs.
" The voters who are coming out are informed voters. They are voters we've reached out," said Lederman.
Lederman voted just before noon at the Rebecca Johnson School with his political mentor E. Henry Twiggs, the Ward 4 city councilor and longtime chairman of the Springfield City Democratic Committee.
" He is a person with tremendous energy and skills who is going to be a real asset to the city of Springfield," Twiggs said of Lederman.
Most voters interviewed randomly outside polling places in Springfield said they voted because of civic duty. Issues mentioned by the voters included crime, education and the possible downsizing of the planned MGM casino.
Turnout was predicted to be much higher in some of the smaller cities in the Pioneer Valley including Holyoke and Chicopee, which both have hotly contested mayoral elections.
