Despite foreseeing no downside with elections domestically, the often unexcitable Secretary of the State Bill Galvin felt “compelled” to touch upon the state of voter sentiment nationally.
“You know, two years ago I held this press conference in anticipation of the presidential election, no one was speaking about reliability of the ballots, no one was questioning what was going to happen, no one was questioning the process, that somehow elections were going to be stolen,” Galvin mentioned at an election-eve press convention on the State House Monday.
For two years, Galvin mentioned, the truth that voters throughout the nation have been coping with the continuing “discussion, if you want to call it that” surrounding the reliability of election methods and the veracity of the 2020 presidential contest, “really speaks to the depth of which it has penetrated our political consciousness in our society.”
“It demands us to speak out to those who question it and to refute false claims wherever they are made,” he mentioned. “Fortunately here in Massachusetts, most of the issues that we’ve confronted as a result of this misrepresentation have been suspicions, lawsuits — most baseless — and just generally questions of results, as opposed to other parts of the country where people have been threatened with violence.”
The secretary’s warning comes simply because the Department of Justice introduced it might be sending displays to polls in a number of states, together with Massachusetts.
“The Justice Department announced today its plans to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws in 64 jurisdictions in 24 states for the Nov. 8, 2022, general election,” the Department mentioned in a Monday launch.
Officials will monitor polling places in Clinton, Everett, Fitchburg, Leominster, Malden, Methuen, Randolph and Salem, they mentioned.
High tensions in different places apart, Galvin mentioned that voters in Bay State merely haven’t been animated by the candidates they’re offered with this cycle.
“It doesn’t seem like there is tremendous enthusiasm for this election,” Galvin mentioned. “It’s almost a little anticlimactic.”
About 1.1 million mail-in ballots had been requested Galvin mentioned, and most, about 776,000, have been returned, he mentioned. That means about 350,000 voters have ballots in hand or on the way in which, he mentioned.
“I do not expect all 350,000 to return,” he mentioned.
Despite a historic ticket — with an opportunity to ship an nearly solely feminine management crew and ship Galvin himself to a record-breaking eighth time period as Secretary of State — Galvin mentioned that if not for 4 poll questions offered to voters he wouldn’t anticipate a lot curiosity in any respect.
“My office has received more questions on the questions than anything else,” he mentioned.
According to Galvin, each side of every of the 4 questions have been doing a good job of promoting their model of what the proposed modifications would quantity to, however anybody with questions ought to seek advice from the official voter information.
“The one-sentence statement is the best and most precise summary of what the ballot question can do,” he mentioned.
Massachusetts stays a principally unbiased voter state, Galvin mentioned, with greater than half of voters refusing registration with both main get together and participation in these two events persevering with to drop.
Registered Democratic voters now symbolize lower than 30% of all voters and Republicans lower than 10%, Galvin mentioned.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”