Early voting in Swampscott is taking place in the town hall, an old red-brick building across the street from Gov. Charlie Baker’s house. The traffic on Monday morning wasn’t overwhelming—there was no line out the door—but it was steady. In the first hour and a half, about 75 people showed up. Not a bad number, given that Swampscott's population is about 15,000.
The first person to cast a ballot Monday was Marion Garfinkel. She said she welcomed a chance to start putting this particular election season behind her.
"I was so eager to finally come out and get this over with," Garfinkel told me.
"It’s certainly a different year, you know that, and it’s been really mind-boggling for the entire universe, I’m sure," she added. "Europe and us and everybody else."
"I'd like to see this at rest," Garfinkel said. "In all of my years, I've never seen such a tumultuous kind of a situation going on."
Garfinkel also said she won’t miss standing in line on November 8. That's a sentiment that Swampscott town clerk Susan Duplin applauds.
"I figured, my thinking is, it’s just going to help us on Election Day," Duplin said.
The state’s new early-voting regimen is flexible: Municipalities have to hold early voting at one site during regular business hours—but can do more if they choose to. For example, Swampscott is letting people vote in the early evening and on Saturdays.
The town will get a small reimbursement from the Secretary of the Commonwealth to help cover costs. But Duplin said she'd have scheduled Saturday hours even without that incentive.
"Especially the presidential [election] is crazy, it’s nonstop," she said. "So hopefully this will alleviate a lot of the craziness."
The city of Revere is doing things a bit differently. It's holding early voting on one Saturday, not two, and ending it at 5 p.m. during the week.
On Monday, the flow of voters into the American Legion post next to Revere City Hall was more of a trickle. But there, too, a sense of election fatigue was palpable.
"I just wanted to make sure I got my vote in," said Bob Gallo, who's supporting Donald Trump. "I feel bad for Trump, because he cut his own throat, but ..."
Asked if he's confident the outcome in the presidential race is as good as decided, Gallo said he is.
"I positively think that Hillary’s going to win," he said. "And it's going to make me sad. Because I just wanted to get a new administration in there. Change the blood, you know."
Which brings up one criticism of early voting: What if something big happens, but your vote’s already been cast? Last week, Baker actually cited that scenario to explain why he’s not voting early.
But Pam Wilmot of Common Cause Massachusetts—which strongly supports the newly implemented early-voting law—says voter patterns from states that have been doing it for years show that's not really a concern.
"The people that vote early are your most committed voters," Wilmot said. "Those are people that really will not change their mind, no matter what happens. And the people that are less committed to their candidates, or still undecided, wait to Election Day."
Wilmot also argues that while it’s tempting to romanticize the old, single Election Day as an uplifting moment of civic unity—complete with cute little “I VOTED!" stickers—the reality isn’t always that pleasant, especially for lower-income voters who don't have the luxury of flexible work schedules.
"In Boston in 2012, some voters waited up to three hours in line," she said. "In Worcester and Springfield some of the lines were up to two hours."
"We live in an increasingly busy world, where people are juggling many, many different demands," Wilmot added. "Nostalgia is not a reason to keep a system that isn’t working for everyone."
So far, after all of one day, Massachusetts' new early-voting system seems to be working fairly smoothly, at least on the North Shore.
The city clerks in both Revere and Chelsea said the first day was progressing without difficulty. And at Swampscott Town Hall, it took me roughly two minutes to get a ballot and early-ballot envelope and fill them out—then place the ballot inside the envelope, seal it, and drop it off for counting later on. (For the record, I'm both a Swampscott resident and registered voter.)
Just like that, the 2016 election felt a little bit closer to being over. And to be totally honest, that felt pretty good.
