The state is reporting strong turnout so far for the November election.
Between mail-in ballots received and the first weekend of in-person early voting, more than 800,000 votes have now been cast in Massachusetts. According to Secretary of State William Galvin’s office, that represents over 17% of registered voters.
In Boston, a total of about 34,900 voters cast their ballot either in-person or by mail as of Monday, according to state data, representing a turnout of just over 8% city-wide. Mayor Marty Walsh's office said that nearly 17,300 of those ballots were cast in-person on Saturday and Sunday, at one of 27 polling locations throughout Boston.
"I think with the city just having taken earlier precautions with, you know, making sure that everyone is required to wear masks, I think that people do feel a lot more comfortable getting out and voting earlier," said Tara Miller, a 28-year-old Brighton resident, on Saturday. "It seems like there is a huge push to — at least among our friends and kind of younger people — to get their vote in and really make it count and share with others that they have, in fact, voted."
Towns that have seen a higher percentage of registered voters take advantage of early and mail-in voting thus far include Lexington with 39.72% turnout, Eastham with 37.65% turnout and Natick with 34.53% turnout.
In Worcester, more than 18% of registered voters have cast ballots to date, including more than 3,000 in-person over the weekend.
“We had a great turnout,” said Worcester City Clerk Niko Vangjeli of the first weekend of early voting. “We’re going to try to encourage everybody to come in and vote [early] in person. Folks that wanted to vote by mail, we have drop boxes all around the city at the fire stations. So, we’re trying to give folks as much opportunity so they can cast their ballot before Election Day.”
Early voting continues across the state through Oct. 30. The dates and hours when voters can cast a ballot during the early voting period varies from town to town. A number of Massachusetts municipalities are now open every day until close of early voting, including Medford.
“Voting so far has been steady and smooth,” Medford Town Clerk Adam Hurtubise wrote in an email to GBH News. He noted that more than 1,000 early votes were cast in-person over the weekend.
“Based on our prior early voting experiences, we expect traffic to increase slowly but steadily throughout the 14 days,” he said.
Thus far, the number of ballots cast in Massachusetts equals 24% of the total number of ballots cast in the 2016 election, according to the secretary of state’s office.
But it’s difficult to draw any conclusions about voter enthusiasm at this point, as the options for voters to cast their ballot prior to Election Day have been greatly expanded this year. The early voting period this year was extended by a week — including two weekends instead of one. And mail-in voting has been offered as an option to all voters for the first time this year.
