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Date: 11/21/2022
NORTHAMPTON – According to City Clerk Pamela Powers, Election Day on Nov. 8 ran “relatively smoothly” at Northampton polling places.
“We had no major hiccups,” said Powers, in an interview with Reminder Publishing. “We had enough ballots sent to the polls to let people vote if they chose.”
According to Powers, there was about a 74 percent turnout rate for the 2022 general election, which is a stark rise from the 40 percent rate in 2021, and a slight decline from the 85 percent rate in 2020 – which was the election that featured the presidential race.
“[The turnout] was not as good as other years for state elections,” said Powers. “We mostly get a good draw of people for presidential races, but in the off years, it’s really difficult to tell.”
Despite this slight decline in prior state election years, Powers said that many Northampton residents were interested in the five ballot questions and the Hampshire County Sheriff race between incumbent Sheriff Patrick Cahillane and write-in candidate Yvonne Gittelson. Cahillane won Northampton pretty handily with 9,180 votes to Gittelson’s 2,785.
“I think between the questions and the sheriff’s race, that’s what people were focusing on,” said Powers.
Although the turnout rate was slightly lower than past state election years, it was still a lot better than 2021’s general election, which featured major Northampton races that included mayor, City Council and School Committee. According to Powers, this discrepancy in turnout between state elections and municipal elections is fairly typical.
“Municipal elections never get the kind of turnout that we get for state elections,” said Powers. “We receive much lower numbers when there’s a municipal election.”
According to results posted on the city’s website, Gov.-elect Maura Healey and Lieutenant Gov.-elect Kim Driscoll dominated Northampton, receiving almost 12,000 votes to Geoff Diehl and Leah Cole Allen’s 1,453.
Beyond that, Northampton residents voted yes for all four questions pertaining to the state, including an amendment to the state’s constitution to levy an additional 4 percent surtax on income over $1 million to be put towards education and transportation, as well as endorsing a law passed earlier this year that allows immigrants without legal status in the U.S. to receive drivers’ licenses.
Voters were also tasked with answering a fifth public policy question relating to Northampton that included fossil fuels. According to Powers, the question was, “Shall the representative from this district be instructed to introduce and vote for legislation that puts a fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels to compensate for their environmental damage and returns most of the proceeds in equitable ways to individuals as cash back dividends.” According to results, Northampton residents voted “yes” by a wide margin.
Mail-in ballots
In 2020, which featured the height of the coronavirus pandemic coinciding with the presidential election, Powers said Northampton mailed 12,000 ballots for mail-in voting. This year, however, that number dropped to 7,500.
“Overall, the numbers just did not match what we had in 2020,” said Powers, when talking about the election altogether.
The only real confusion Powers noticed on election day was a result of the redistricting last year that occurred as a result of the 2020 census, which led to the change of polling locations for some voters. Powers said that a notice was sent out to everybody prior to the September primary with information on polling changes, but since some did not vote during the primary, those same people showed up at their old polling locations by accident on election day.
“We did get quite a few calls to reroute people to their new polling location as a result of the redistricting,” said Powers.
Other than that, though, there were really no major issues in Northampton. “Don’t get me wrong, it was a busy day,” said Powers. “But everything ran relatively smoothly.”