Election overseer expects high voter turnout

BOSTON (WWLP) – Massachusetts is expecting an enormous turnout at the state primary this year.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin had a news conference on Thursday to share his statistical predictions for the election. The secretary based his predictions on the 444,000 total mail-in votes counted by Thursday afternoon in the state. Galvin said his office expects to see turnout including half a million democratic voters and 250,000 republican voters, surpassing the last two comparable elections in 2012 and 2016.

Secretary Galvin explained that while there are not many contested seats in this election cycle, Massachusetts citizens are still exercising their right to vote. “Where you have no races, I guess it’s just the civic commitment of the voters to participate. And we’ve still seen that,” said Galvin at the press conference.

The results of this primary election determine which state office candidates are on the November ballot. The secretary’s office is responsible for printing these ballots and distributing them to mail-in voters and to polling places ahead of that election, which will include candidates for president.

“We’re hoping that we’ll have a successful primary on Tuesday. I’m personally hoping there are no really close races because that will affect the ability of us to print a ballot right away which is what we want to do,” said Galvin. Secretary Galvin warned that it is too late to send in mail-in ballots to guarantee they arrive in time, urging voters to instead drop off their mail-in ballots at polling boxes.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Tuesday and mail-in ballots must be received before polls close to be counted.

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