Ahead of Election Day, Massachusetts officials are reporting that over one-fifth of the Commonwealth’s 5.2 million registered voters have already cast ballots. That's part of a nationwide trend, with the University of Florida tallying 56 million early votes submitted for the midterms with just hours to go before polls open Tuesday.
In the Southern Berkshires, Great Barrington town clerk Joshua Risen says it's been brisk business over the past weeks. The staggering nine ballot questions Massachusetts voters must decide on have made a significant impact on the election.
Risen told WAMC he has concerns about this year's ballot, which now must be cast over two separate cards.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Risen: The volume for in-person early voting has drastically been above and beyond what I'm used to for any of the elections I've been involved in to date. Our numbers right now are 379 people have voted in-person early, and just to give you an idea comparatively, it's usually around like 30 people. So it's quite a increase.
Landes: What do you ascribe that to? Any idea of what's fueling this greater increase of folks showing up to the polls early?
Risen: I really don't know. I'm guessing that there is some organization or people out there pushing to have people do more in-person early voting. That is my only guess, but I honestly don't really know why it's made such a drastic increase.
Landes: Given that this is a midterm vote, not a presidential vote, that seems like quite a sign of something, right? Like normally, it's the presidential elections that bring out people in droves.
Risen: Yeah, but I mean, this is even more than the last presidential. I want to say. I mean, I'd have to look the numbers up, but I feel like this is well beyond what we're used to at any time.
Landes: So, with that in mind, how are you preparing for tomorrow when the polls open on Election Day itself?
Risen: I'm doing the same stuff that I always do with regards to elections. I've had some trainings for all of my poll workers. I have tried to think of any contingencies that could come into play, and I'm just trying to get to bed early tonight because it's going to be a 20-plus hour day tomorrow. So it's a lot of preparation, and my office has been very, very busy doing everything we can to get ready for tomorrow.
Landes: Over the last decade, the question of the security and legitimacy of voting in America has been a persistent topic in the press and from the political world. At this point, any concerns about how this election is going to turn out in Great Barrington? Can you vouch for the work your office is doing when it comes to those questions?
Risen: At a lot of the trainings we go to, we run through scenarios of things that we should be aware of and concerned about, and some of them are some intimidating situations to say the least.
But I mean, I have my list of emergency contact information and numbers to get in touch with people if something does go wrong. So outside of that, I have a contingency plan for if there's a reason to evacuate the polling location. There're contingencies put in place for whatever we can really think about. But I hope — I definitely don't anticipate — anything like that happening, and haven't had to encounter anything like that before. So just hoping it goes smooth.
Landes: Now, Great Barrington is an interesting community in Berkshire County. It has this vibrant core as a town, but also a lot of folks who live in more rural parts of both the municipality and the county. What are the challenges of of conducting an election like this with folks living farther from urban centers?
Risen: Part of the problem is getting the getting people to be aware of what's happening. So, like, we post things on our website and we do announcements through the media with you guys and we put up physical advertisements for when votes and what is happening are scheduled. And we still have people coming in, not sure when, where, or how to vote inevitably. So, getting the message out to people is tricky with the amount of rural people that we have.
Landes: And just to pull the camera back a little bit, from what you've seen so far, more folks coming out for early voting, these mail-in ballots coming back, it seems, pretty consistently. Any other trends you're noticing about this election cycle that might differ from either 2024 or 2022?
Risen: I don't know about trends, but I mean there are two ballot cards this time around, so it's going to introduce some additional complications to how the whole situation is run. But I don't have any new trends that I could identify.
Landes: Well, let's talk about the ballot cards. Break it down for us. Why two cards, and what is that going to mean for voters at the polls when they see these two cards?
Risen: It's going to cause complications because everyone's used to getting a ballot that consists of one card.
This time around, it is an 18-inch ballot, so it's a longer card, and there're two of them, so it's going to double the volume that the machines are going to have to process. It's going to introduce the possibility of having to empty the machines midway through if they get full. It's going to introduce complications of timing, how long people have to process their ballot.
The state indicates that there is a five-minute rule that you're allowed to have if there is a line to complete your vote while you're at the polling station, and if there is no line, they're entitled to 10 minutes. But I mean, when I read the ballot, it took me 30, 35 minutes just to read the ballot. So there're going to be longer lines, a slower, longer day.
It's a little disconcerting. I don't want to tell people that they need to hurry up when they're voting. It doesn't put me in a good position. Then there's the chance of jamming the machine because somebody's going to try to put their second card in immediately before the first cards processed, then there's tallying that gets involved. So there's a lot of increased complications with having two cards.
Landes: When do you expect results from tomorrow's vote?
Risen: If everything goes well and there are no unforeseen complications, I should be getting information probably by 11 or 12 tomorrow night.
