By Jean Perry, Neighb News Correspondent
Early voter turnout has turned the Town Clerk’s Offices in both Fairhaven and Acushnet into virtual ground zeros for democracy during the age of COVID-19.
Acushnet Town Clerk Pamela Labonte on 10/20 summarized the experience in two words: “Crazy busy.”
Early voting in Acushnet began on Saturday, 10/17 and went from 8:00 a.m. until noon. Ninety-two showed up to vote on the first day, followed by 123 on Sunday. By the end of the day on Monday, 10/19, Ms. Labonte had counted 398 ballots.
“And we’ve probably gotten back already approximately 600 mail-in ballots,” said Ms. Labonte.
“It’s insane,” she said. “It’s insane. There’s no other way to describe it.”
Over at the Council on Aging in fairhaven, Town Clerk Carolyn Hurley has been equally inundated by voters eager to cast their ballots ahead of Election day on 11/3 in order to avoid the crowds and mitigate their potential exposure to the coronavirus.
As of midday on Tuesday, 10/20, Ms. Hurley told the Neighb News that 750 had participated in early voting, and she had been receiving a steady stream of mail-in ballots. She said her office has sent out over 3,500 mail-in ballots to the Fairhaven voters who requested them.
“We are just straight out,” said Ms. Hurley. “Straight out!”
In other words, the Town Clerk’s Office has never seen an election like this one.
Still, said Ms. Hurley, “It’s all going well. It really is nice and smooth, and people seem to be quite confortable voting early at the COA.
“There’s been an abundance of voting and I think we’re handling it perfectly,” said Ms. Hurley.
Early voting in Acushnet is taking place at the Parting Ways Building at 130 Main Street, and in Fairhaven at the COA at 229 Huttleston Avenue, and will continue until Friday, 10/30. Voting hours are the same for both towns: 8 a.m. to noon. on Saturday-Sunday, and 8 a.m.- 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.
Acushnet will be participating in “advanced processing” of early voting ballots, but has not yet set a date and time.
During advanced processing, ballots are removed from their envelopes, counted, and fed into the tabulators before Election Day. The public is allowed to be present to witness the process, and during this time the contesting of ballots is allowed.
Acushnet will decide on the time and date of its advanced processing by the end of Friday this week, and will post the details on www.acushnet.ma.us.
Fairhaven does not participate in advanced processing, and will open and feed all mail-in and early voter ballots into the optical scanner on Election Day, 11/3.
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