Boldyga questions decision to extend mail-in votingDate: 3/9/2021 WESTERN MASS. – On March 1, Massachusetts House lawmakers passed a bill extending the COVID-19 early mail-in voting law to June 30. The law will allow residents of Massachusetts to use this mechanism for voting in local elections until this date.
The new extension, which is heading to the Senate for a review, has led to some controversy within the state’s House of Representatives about the way in which the bill was passed. State Rep. Nick Boldyga, along with three other Republican legislators, sent out a letter to the House Speaker Ron Mariano on March 2 calling for more analysis and debate before officially extending the early mail-in voting date.
“There have been so many questions that have been unanswered that we don’t have the information for,” said Boldyga, with regard to the mail-in voting law. “Why can’t we get that information from the Secretary of State’s office before we make a decision to move forward, and extend it?”
The law took effect in July 2020 to give residents an option to vote by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic. Boldyga said that he was supportive of this option last year, but wishes Beacon Hill decided to dissect the strengths and weaknesses of the law before allowing it to extend further.
“I was disappointed to see that the legislature went ahead and extended it when we don’t have any of that information,” said Boldyga. The state representative for Agawam, Southwick, and Granville, believes that if the House did decide to analyze the impacts of mail-in voting, then the state could have improved the effectiveness of the law.
Boldyga argued that many secure ballot boxes outside of town halls in Boston were vandalized before votes were counted on election day. “That would be something we can improve upon, some way, if we had the information,” he said.
In talking to residents across his district, Boldyga found early mail-in voting to be divisive. Some residents enjoyed the idea of having that option during the pandemic, while others were unhappy with the law.
“There are so many other resources that we have available for voting, that going through the process of mailing all these ballots and applications, is just extremely expensive when the state is in a crunch for money,” said Boldyga, who also added that residents have the option for No Excuse Absentee Ballot voting, as well as other early voting options in Massachusetts.
According to Boldyga, 70 percent of Massachusetts residents over the age of 75 have been vaccinated, statistics that came out before the early mail-in vote date was extended, according to Boldyga.
“Do we even need the mail-in voting now that so many people have received their vaccinations?” said Boldyga.
Many city clerks in Boldyga’s district stated that the early mail-in law was “burdensome” to implement, and also reported that many ballots that had to be mailed out were dropped off outside in an unsecured fashion. Some clerks even said that ballots were easily identifiable because the boxes outside of town halls had ballots taped to them.
“We should have had all of the information available from the Secretary of State’s office regarding how the mail-in voting went,” said Boldyga.
The letter that was sent to the speaker also argued that public hearings should have been held around the state to hear about the strengths and weaknesses in cities with regard to mail-in voting.
“We just need to be better about how we do things in government, because we’re responsible for the people in Massachusetts” said Boldyga.
Within his district alone, Boldyga said he heard zero complaints from citizens about access to in-person voting or other safety concerns during the primary and November elections. He did however receive calls from people who were worried about their ballot not being processed in time for election day.
“We just have a lot of accessibility to voting in Massachusetts already,” said Boldyga. “I think we should have this information before having any discussion about making [mail-in voting] permanent.”
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