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Date: 11/16/2021
SPRINGFIELD – Ward 4 City Council candidate Jynai McDonald has appealed to Secretary of State William Galvin and Attorney General Maura Healey to investigate campaign violations made by incumbent councilor Malo Brown during the recent election. This was a rematch between the two candidates from two years ago and McDonald explained there were issues with the previous election, but she did not carry her complaints far enough.
Brown told Reminder Publishing he was “disappointed” by McDonald’s actions. He added, “Ward 4 chose who they wanted before and they chose now.”
Brown received 645 votes while McDonald had 544 votes.
McDonald’s concerns extend beyond activities allegedly from her opponent’s campaign, but also how the city ran the elelction.
In her letter to Galvin and Healey, McDonald wrote, “On Monday, November 8, 2021 I made a written declaration of my intent to contest the election of Springfield City Councilor Malo Brown to the city of Springfield’s Clerk Gladys Oyola. In addition to a vote count petition and a complaint of repetitive voter intimidation sent to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office I am requesting a thorough review of Springfield’s election process and enforcement of the election rules. The following improprieties need to be addressed:
• Faults and discrepancies with the vote by mail/absentee ballot notification, application submission, and ballot return procedures. Some voters did not receive their ballots until the day of the deadline and as late as Election Day.
There are voters who requested an absentee ballot but never received their ballot.
• Technical failures with servers and machines during the vote count.
• Changing the ballot format without voter education or the city making sample ballots accessible prior to the election to reduce ballot mis-markings.
• Failure to stop and penalize voter intimidation.
• Failure to stop and penalize campaigning within the 150-foot buffer zone of the polling location entrance.
• Failure to stop and penalize campaign signs being placed on public property.
“It is improprieties like these that complicate the voting process and confuse the voter, which in turn leads to voter suppression. Despite Springfield having at least 100,000 registered voters our voter turnout remains embarrassingly low. The city of Springfield needs to invest more in its elections to encourage voting and to actually protect their rights to vote, not suppress them.”
McDonald explained to Reminder Publishing that she would be filing a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the body camera footage from the Springfield Police at the polls to corroborate reports of actions she described as “voter intimidation.”
“I ran a clean positive campaign,” Brown asserted.
McDonald added she would be seeking legal representation as she pursues her case.
Hurst questions mail-in ballot infromation
In another matter related to the last election City Councilor Justin Hurst announced he would like to meet with Mayor Domenic Sarno and Election Commissioner Gladys Oyola about concerns with the mailing of a postcard that was to inform registered voters how to request a mail-in ballot.
Hurst stated in a press release, “I know firsthand that there was an issue because I did not receive my ‘Vote by Mail’ postcard from the Election Commission until the Wednesday before the election and I heard from some constituents that they received them as late as last Thursday. This would have made it impossible for any of us to have participated in this election cycle if voting by mail was our only option. I also received numerous phone calls from residents who requested their mail in ballots weeks in advance of the election only to receive them days before. Fearful that their ballots may not be counted if sent by snail mail, they had no choice but to bring them directly to City Hall. I can only imagine that for some voters, the burden of actually having to go to City Hall when they intended to vote by mail, excluded them from the process altogether.”
He added, “Fortunately, we do not live in a state that has passed laws making it harder for people to vote as a result of the 2020 elections. In fact, here in Massachusetts we made voting easier, which is why what happened here in Springfield is even more frustrating. When you combine the obstacles that came with voting by mail, the delay in the reporting of the election results on election day, and the significant increase in votes recorded for candidates the day after the election, it raises eyebrows for both residents and those running for office. It is incumbent upon us as elected officials to get to the bottom of this and be as transparent as possible regarding what occurred. I plan on working with City Councilor Melvin Edwards, who is the chair of the General Government Sub-Committee, to hold a meeting on this issue in the coming weeks.”
Reminder Publishing could not reach Oyola for comment by press time.