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Date: 11/21/2022
AMHERST – The town of Amherst saw a record-high turnout on Nov. 8th’s midterm elections. Votes were gathered via in-person polling and mail-in ballots. The town clerk’s office was responsible for counting votes and reporting results.
In the race for Massachusetts governor and lieutenant governor, Maura Healy and Kim Driscoll won these votes in Amherst respectively. Andrea Campbell won Amherst for the Attorney General race. William Francis Galvin took the Secretary of State victory. Debora Goldberg won state Treasurer. James McGovern won Amherst’s vote for Representative in Congress, while Mindy Domb won for Representative in General Court, and Jo Comerford for Senator in General Court.
On the local side of things, David Sullivan was reelected as Northwestern District Attorney, and Patrick Cahillane was reelected as Hampshire County Sheriff. Finally, in regard to the propositions on the ballot, Amherst voted “Yes” by majority on all four questions. Amherst’s choices are consistent with voting trends elsewhere; every candidate who won in Amherst won the election as a whole, and all propositions were passed except for Question 3.
“We are currently at a 56 percent voter turnout. In 2010 we had a 45 percent turnout, 2014 we had 37 percent and in 2018 we had a 50 percent turnout,” Amherst Town Clerk Susan Audette said.
As of press time, 8,158 ballots had been cast; 3,664 were in-person votes, and 4,284 were mailed in early, plus some that were counted the day after the election. She attributes this rise to the emergence of mail-in ballots.
“Myself along with quite a few people I’ve talked to believe that it’s definitely based on the fact that we now have mail-in voting. It’s just so easy for people, Postage is already paid on the envelope, it doesn’t get easier [than that]…Of our ballots that we received back through the mail, we had 4,284 ballots delivered to the polls on election morning. That already represented 30 percent of [potential] voters. Between that and the people that turned out, at 56 percent it’s almost like a 50-50 split. More through the mail than in-person, but that was still more people than I expected to show up in-person. Great turnout,” Audette said.
However, the record turnout increased the workload of the town clerk’s office, which as Audette explained, required them to enlist outside help to handle it all.
“Now on the other hand, the burden falls on the clerk’s offices to all of the sudden process all this much more work before election day. We had a lot of election workers that helped us through the process, regular people coming in at least twice a week, two people in addition to our three-person staff. That’s what it took to get through all of that,” she said. “They all have to be sorted, logged in and accounted for, so while it’s great for the voters, now it’s left up to the clerks to figure out how to do it. This is an issue that I think needs to be addressed statewide: ‘How do we help the clerk’s offices out in getting to the point where it’s ready to go to the polls without working 24/7?’”
To give some context as to the size of this increase, Audette spoke on past elections within Amherst.
“I’ve been in this office for 17 years and when I first started it was just absentee voters,” Audette said. “I think the most we ever got might have been the 2008 election. We had 1,200 ballots and we thought, ‘Oh my God, how are we going to get through 1,200 ballots?!’ [laughs]. Yes, the process for absentee ballots is a little more cumbersome than the early ballots, the application process is more involved, the back end is more involved, but it’s just amazing when you go from 1,200 to 4,284, you know?”
Still, despite the extra work, Audette was pleased with how the election went, and supports the new voting methods.
“Everything went pretty smoothly…I think it’s great that the state’s opened up a variety of avenues to be able to vote from. It’s great for the voters,” she said.