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Date: 4/11/2023
AGAWAM — For the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, voters won’t have a guaranteed right to cast a ballot by mail this November.
The Agawam City Council voted 7-4 on April 3 to opt out of mail-in voting for this year’s town election, including the October preliminary election, if one is necessary. The vote does not affect future state and federal elections. State law now mandates allowing mail-in voting for those contests, and allows towns to opt out for local elections only on a year-to-year basis.
Town Clerk Vince Gioscia had asked for the opt-out, saying the way town elections are structured makes it impossible to conduct mail-in voting fairly.
“For me, it’s an issue of logistics,” Gioscia said. “When there’s a state election, the state has about eight weeks between their primary election and their general election. We have less than four weeks.”
He said when Agawam has a preliminary election, which the town charter mandates must be in October, he has to certify those election results, have them approved by the state, leave time for a potential recount, then have the ballots printed and mail them out. Gioscia said he can’t be confident that voters will receive their ballots and be able to return them, by postal mail, in time for Election Day in early November. Some people’s votes could be missed simply because of routine post office delays.
“I would not be able to get those ballots [to voters] until a week before the election,” Gioscia said, and even if the ballots are filled out and mailed back promptly, “I can’t guarantee those ballots will reach me in time.”
More than two dozen onlookers packed the meeting room at the Agawam Senior Center for a public hearing on the resolution, and all who spoke asked the City Council to reject the opt-out.
“Shouldn’t we, as a town, want the greatest number of people to vote that can? I believe that is democracy,” said Cooper Street resident Daniel Arventos.
“Everybody’s vote should count. The people this is going to affect are the elderly, who are more vulnerable to COVID and influenza and RSV,” said Susan Grossberg of Moore Street, who went on to mention working-class people with multiple jobs and parents of young children as others who find it difficult to make it to in-person polls. “These are the people you are disenfranchising by doing this,” she said.
“We must have muddled through in 2021,” said Michael Stage of Candlewood Drive, referring to the previous town election. “I must have faith that we can muddle through again.”
The two sides of the debate disagreed over whether mail-in voting increased turnout. Gioscia compared the pandemic-era elections to the most recent similar elections before 2020. In 2020, a presidential election year, the town had 71% voter turnout with mail-in ballots, while in 2016, the previous presidential election, it had 69% voter turnout. For the state election, turnout was 51% in 2022 (with mail-in ballots) and actually higher, 56%, in 2018 (without them).
The town election of 2021, with mail-in ballots, saw 24% voter turnout, while the average turnout of the previous three municipal elections was 21%, Gioscia said. But he added that the incumbent mayor had no opponents in 2015 and 2019, which could account for the lower turnout.
Agawam only schedules a preliminary election when the number of candidates for a given race is more than twice the number of available seats. The last times there were preliminary elections were in 2019, when there were 23 candidates for the 11 council seats, and 2015, when there were three candidates for mayor.
In addition to the 11 people who spoke against eliminating mail-in voting, another 11 asked that their names be recorded in opposition. Nobody in the audience spoke in favor of the proposal.
The audience speeches were able to flip at least one vote.
“When I came here tonight, I was convinced that I was going to vote to opt out,” Councilor Gerald Smith said. “After listening to all these people speak tonight, I have changed my mind. By this showing tonight you’ve shown me what the people of the town of Agawam want.”
Councilor Anthony Russo, however, said he had done his own informal poll, and based his vote on that. He said in conversations with constituents, he had counted 223 in favor of the town clerk’s proposal, and 67 against it. Adding all the people in the audience — including those who did not speak — would still make it 223-109 in favor, he said.
Russo voted with the majority, in favor of dropping mail-in voting for the 2023 town election. The resolution passed 7-4, with Smith joined by councilors Thomas Hendrickson, Robert Rossi and Rosemary Sandlin in voting “no.”
“Mass mail-in ballots are now enshrined in our state laws,” said Rossi. “Those rights are not privileges, to be allowed or denied or limited by anybody. It’s time to put this thing to rest once and for all. If it makes it easier, more accessible … what’s the harm?”
Like many of his fellow “yes” votes, Russo said he would like to see the town charter amended to move the preliminary election a month earlier, so that mail-in voting can be restored for future elections.
Council President Christopher Johnson said he would draft a resolution to that effect and bring it to the council as soon as possible. A charter change would require an act of the state Legislature, and ballot question approval by town residents.
In the meantime, said Gioscia, many people have the option of absentee voting, which is functionally identical to mail-in voting.
“No one is going to be denied the right to vote,” Gioscia said. “If you qualify for an absentee ballot under the statute, you will still be able to get an absentee ballot.”
He said there are eight ways a voter can qualify for an absentee ballot, including planning to be absent from the state on Election Day, or having a medical or religious reason for not being able to travel to the polls.
Johnson said it has been Agawam’s policy for decades to be liberal in its interpretation of those qualifications.
“Agawam has never strictly enforced absentee ballot rules,” Johnson said. “We always want to encourage everyone to have the ability to vote.”
At the end of the meeting, many councilors thanked the people who had attended the meeting and shared their opinions. Hendrickson thanked the speakers, too, and criticized those who had voted against them.
“It’s frustrating to hear councilors thank folks for coming out, and talk about how we need more community engagement … and then still looking at you and saying ‘no,’ and still ignoring everybody,” Hendrickson said. “I wish that councilors would take community input more seriously, going forward.”
Also at the April 3 meeting, the City Council approved transferring $23,200 from the Agawam Municipal Golf Course’s retained earnings account — a savings account funded by past years’ receipts — to this year’s operating expenses. The money will be used to buy seed and equipment for the upcoming golf season.
Councilors also gave final approval to a zone change removing multi-family housing as a land use option in Business A districts. The vote was 9-1, with Councilor Thomas Hendricks against. Councilor Cecilia Calabrese abstained.