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Date: 11/14/2023
NORTHAMPTON — According to City Clerk Pamela Powers, election day on Nov. 7 went relatively smooth at all of the Northampton polling locations.
“The polling locations indicated that the flow of people was steady throughout the entire day but there really weren’t any lines,” Powers told Reminder Publishing. “We didn’t really have any problems, thank goodness.”
Voter turnout was low compared to the past few years. According to Powers, 24% of the 22,444 registered voters in Northampton voted in the 2023 Biennial Municipal Election. Powers said she projected a voter turnout of 30%.
The 24% mark is a stark decline from the 74% turnout rate Reminder Publishing reported last year during the 2022 general election — which featured major races for governor and Hampshire County Sheriff. The 2023 rate is also lower than the 40% tally from 2021 and 85% rate in 2020, which was the election that featured the presidential race.
This year’s election featured four different races between City Council and School Committee. Garrick Perry and Marissa Elkins defeated David Murphy and Roy Martin for two at-large City Council seats, while Gwen Agna and Aline Davis finished ahead of Meg Robbins for two At-Large School Committee seats.
The other two races were ward contests. For the Ward 3 City Council seat, Quaverly Rothenberg defeated write-in candidate Claudia Lefko, and incumbent Michael Stein defeated Endamian Stewart for the Ward 4 School Committee seat.
The rest of the ward seats in both City Council and School Committee did not feature any contested races.
In general, Powers said municipal elections never usually have as high a turnout as state elections, especially when a mayoral race is not involved.
“When there’s no mayor race on the ballot, there’s not a really a big draw for people to come out and vote,” Powers said.
Once again, Northampton participated in early voting and vote-by-mail. According to the City Clerk’s Facebook page, people had an opportunity to vote before the Nov. 7 election on four different days in October. While turnout for those dates was also low, Powers said these mechanisms are still important tools for access to voting in the city.
“I look at our goal here is to make it as easy as possible for voters to cast their vote for any election, so I don’t think in my tenure I plan on not having early voting in-person,” Powers said. “That’s just my philosophy about having voters have their say.”
Although the final report was not available as of press time, Powers estimated that around 600 people requested a ballot or came in person prior to election day. Last year, Reminder Publishing reported that Northampton mailed 7,500 ballots for mail-in voting.