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Ludlow and Belchertown see little change in voter turnouts

Date: 11/18/2022

LUDLOW/BELCHERTOWN – With Election Day in the past and all the races being called Reminder Publishing reached out to local town clerks to see how many people voted and the method they used for voting.

On June 22, Gov. Charlie Baker signed the VOTES Act into law. This required early voting by mail to be available for all state elections, state primaries and presidential primaries.

The idea was to make it easier for everyone to vote and hopefully lead to higher turnout numbers.
According to Belchertown Town Clerk Terry Camerlin, there were 6,876 total voters in Belchertown leading to a 58 percent voter turnout.

This is a little lower turnout than the midterm election in 2018 but Belchertown Camerlin said there no data to support why.

“It is hard to really get a handle on what brings people out to vote and what does not. Usually, the questions bring people out to vote but is still hard to gauge,” Camerlin said.

The 2018 midterm election saw a 67.10 percent voter turnout in Belchertown.

Belchertown residents showed that they agreed with those who were elected to the state legislation. Democratic Gov.-elect Maura Healy collected 4,036 votes compared to 2,665 votes for Republican Geoff Diehl. Democratic indumbent Congressman Richard Neal collected 4,191 and Republican challenger Dean Martilli received 2,506 votes.

State Sen.-elect Jake Oliveira, a Democrat currently representing the 7th Hampden District in the House of Representatives, collected 4,079 votes over Republican Bill Johnson who received 2,664.

Aaron Saunders was able to capture the 7th Hampden District state representative seat by collecting 3,894 votes from his hometown beating out Chip Harrington who received 2,827 votes.
There were 685 people who took advantage of early voting hours in-person. 4,246 residents also requested an early vote-by-mail ballot but only 3,606 of those residents returned early vote by mail ballots.

Camerlin thinks the only impact this new way of voting has is where people vote. She does not think it has a huge impact on the races or how people cast their vote.

“When I look back at other midterms, the numbers are not that different than what was pulled four years ago. What it is doing is shifting where people are voting so rather than coming in and voting in person it is. The two new options aren’t necessarily increasing the number of voters as much as it is shifting how they are voting.” Camerlin added.

There were five questions on the ballot with the first four being statewide and the last one regarding the district. For each question most of the votes were “yes,” except for Question 3.

Question 3 had to do with a proposed law that would increase the statewide limits on the combined number of licenses for the sale of alcoholic beverages for off-premises consumption that any one retailer can control.

Question 5 was not binding.

It read, “Shall the representative for this district be instructed to vote for legislation to create a single payer system of universal health care that provides all Massachusetts residents with comprehensive health care coverage including the freedom to choose doctors and other health care professionals, facilities, and services and eliminates the role of insurance companies in health care by creating an insurance trust fund that is publicly administered.”

There were 3,721 votes for yes and 2,419 votes for no.

Ludlow

According to Ludlow Town Clerk Kim Batista, there was an estimated 7,700 voters leading to a 53 percent voter turnout.

There were approximately 2,600 voters who voted early either by mail or in-person early.

Ludlow residents were split on key races based on votes.

Diehl received 4,140 votes compared to 3,682 for Healy while Oliveira received 4,323 votes compared to 3,571 votes for Johnson.

Neal collected 4,044 votes compared to Martilli receiving 3,729.

Even though Saunders won the state representative seat, the vote total favored Ludlow resident Harrington 4,852 to 3,002 votes.

Out of the five questions at the end of the ballot, only Question 2 had more residents vote “yes”.
Question two dealt with a proposed law that would direct the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Insurance to approve or disapprove the rates of dental benefit plans and require that a dental insurance carrier meet an annual aggregate medical loss ratio for its covered dental benefit plans of 83 percent.

Question 5 saw 3,542 votes for “yes” and 3,650 votes for “no.”