The primary may not officially be until Tuesday, Sept. 1, but anyone who wants to vote will have to register by Saturday. Saturday, August 23, also marks the first day of in-person early voting — creating a single day of same-day voter registration for residents who need to sign up for the first time or have moved since the last election.
Early in-person voting used to be extremely popular, but Belmont Clerk Erin O’Brien Cushman says it’s been sidelined in recent years.
“When early voting came along, we had thousands and thousands and thousands of people coming here to town hall to vote early because they thought it was ingenious and it lets them shift the burden from Election Day to another day,” she said. “It was a convenience thing.”
But now voting by mail has taken over. Voters get a postcard in the mail asking if they want to cast a ballot from home and can send it back to request the mail-in option. That convenience has dramatically shifted how people vote.
“Our vote by mail is usually about 50% of voters who will participate in the election,” said Ben Kaufman, the clerk in Brookline. “Only 5 to 10% of voters will come and vote in-person during early voting.”
It’s a lot for local cities and towns to keep up with: Seven days of in-person early voting sites, tallying up all the mail-in ballots and handling Election Day itself.
“Having all three events makes it a little bit like a triathlon,” said Cushman, who said her town has already been counting mail-in votes.
What makes this weekend unique is that, for one day only, Massachusetts will allow same-day voter registration. At 5 p.m. on Saturday, the commonwealth’s 10-day deadline goes into effect and new voters will no longer be able to vote in the primary.
If all goes according to plan, residents can register for the first time or change their address Saturday and vote that same day. But clerks say it’s not the easiest way to do it since, for instance, some people don’t bring all the right documentation.
“If everything works perfectly, we go onto the state voter registration system and they’re added up into the voting list,” Cushman said.
From there, new voters are added as a supplemental voter and can vote with a provisional ballot that will be officially counted once the system approves their information.
Clerks say they don’t expect a huge same-day rush, since most people are automatically registered to vote when they go through the state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles to get their driver’s license, get health insurance through MassHealth or go through other state agencies.
Many people will also request a mail-in ballot and forget to send it. The post office asks voters to mail the ballot no later give them a week to make sure it gets there in time. Clerk’s offices suggest voters bring those ballots in to drop off at a poll site, or simply just vote in person.
“You can still come and you can vote in person. I encourage everybody to go to Track My Ballot Online, where you will actually be able to see the status of your ballot. You can see if we’ve received it back if we’ve accepted it,” Kaufman said.
The ballot tracker can lag up to 24 hours, so Kaufman says — for voters who are anxious to make sure their vote counts — it’s OK to just show up to the polls in person and vote.
He also says, don’t worry, it won’t get counted twice: There are systems in place to make sure second ballots would be discarded if they arrive in time.
