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Sudbury Town Clerk, Beth Klein, recently requested that the Select Board vote to opt out of vote-by-mail/mail-in voting in the upcoming 2024 Annual Town Election (ATE). (Page 30) The VOTES Act of 2022 gives the Select Board the authority to opt out of mail-in voting. Klein joined the Select Board meeting on Tuesday to explain what’s happening in her office and some of the challenges they are facing this cycle.
In short, she noted that the Presidential Primary election and the ATE are very close together this cycle. The Presidential Primary is on March 5, 2024, and the ATE is on March 25, 2024. Klein felt that would put added burden on the Clerk’s office to process thousands of mail ballots in two nearly back-to-back elections.
Included in the Select Board packet was a letter from the League of Women Voters of Sudbury that, in addition to empathizing with the Town Clerk and staff, voiced fierce opposition to opting out of mail-in voting:
“The League cannot, however, support the Town Clerk’s request to opt out of voting by mail for the March 25 annual town election.
Last year, 39% of the votes in the annual town election were cast by mail—1,320 of 3,353 votes. Removing the option of voting by mail will significantly reduce turnout in the town election. Voters now expect to be able to vote by mail. We cannot go back to voting only on Election Day between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. for local elections. Voting by mail is essential for many who find it difficult to get to the polls, including those who are aging, have challenging schedules, lack transportation, or who are juggling caregiving and jobs and need the mail option.” (Page 34)
The Select Board members also empathized with the challenges that the Clerk’s office is facing, but quickly reached a consensus to keep mail-in voting. In the process, attendees learned a bit more about the Select Board members and their attitudes towards vote-by-mail.
Vice-Chair Kouchakdjian: “Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to support this. I’m somebody who believes that we need to make voting easier for people and more flexible. So unfortunately I do agree with the statement that the League of Women Voters has put forward.” (0:49:50)
Member Roberts: “I also don’t support this. I think the League of Women Voters summarized my thoughts quite well. But we do need to solve for the operational challenge of this, so I too am curious to know, Andy, if you have any thoughts on how to help support the office while this has to be done.” (0:51:08)
Member Russo: “I think in this instance, I do think that the vote-by-mail genie is out of the bottle. So that’s something that’s hard to reverse.” (0:55:00)
Member Carty: “I will say, you know, I’m not the biggest fan of mail-in voting in general. Hopefully I get your words right Beth, but I heard you say quote ‘we may miss things’ and quote ‘a real issue for mistakes.’ Now if there’s a way we can make it better, then maybe we should have that conversation. I do think that we need to be consistent. So if we’re going to have three elections this year and two of them have mail-in, I just think that’s going to be way too confusing. So for me it’s an all or nothing, and I’m not hearing that as an option, so I’m not going to support this either.” (1:07:33)
Chair Dretler: “It is a good problem for us to solve. That’s how I view it. I absolutely encourage more voting options. I think the more we can encourage our population to vote, the better. It’s good for democracy. So I’m not in support of opting out.” (1:08:12)
Several members of the Select Board indicated that if there are ways to support the Clerk’s office in administering both elections, they would want to know about them. Member Russo went so far as to say that he would be open to allocating ARPA funds for additional equipment or other resources, if that would alleviate some of the pressure on the staff involved and help to ensure smooth elections. (1:10:50)
So there will be vote-by-mail for both elections in March 2024, but a conversation with the Town Clerk about adding resources or supports may develop in the weeks and months ahead. There was also some discussion of identifying more volunteers and poll workers for elections. The Town is reporting a shortage of poll workers. More information on the Town’s poll worker program can be found here.
