By DAN TOMASELLO
LYNNFIELD — Registered voters who want to vote by mail in the presidential primary must fill out their applications completely, Town Clerk Amanda Haggstrom said in an interview with the Villager.
Haggstrom recalled that the VOTES Act, which was approved by the State Legislature and signed into law by former Gov. Charlie Baker in 2022, requires the Secretary of State’s Office to send each registered voter in the commonwealth a pre-addressed, postage prepaid vote-by-mail application before each statewide election. The next state election is the presidential primary on Tuesday, March 5.
“Every year in which state elections are held, the state mails a vote-by-mail postcard application to each registered voter in the state,” said Haggstrom. “In years where no state elections are held, only local elections, registered voters who would like to vote-by-mail must send in a signed application, which can be found online, or they can come to the Town Clerk’s Office to fill it out.”
Haggstrom noted that each vote-by-mail postcard application has to be filled out in its entirety.
“When voters receive their postcards, there are detailed instructions for how the applications must be filled out in order to properly receive ballots for the elections selected,” said Haggstrom. “All voters must check off what elections they would like to vote-by-mail for. If someone is registered as unenrolled and they’ve indicated that they’d like to vote in ‘all elections’ or in the two primaries in March and September, they must check off which party’s ballot they’d like for each election. They cannot just indicate under one of the elections listed. They must indicate which ballot they’d like for both. We cannot and are not allowed to assume and send one based on the voter history. Our office is already seeing a large number of voters requesting one party’s ballot for March and a different party’s ballot for September.”
Haggstrom said voters registered as Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians who request vote-by-mail ballots will be sent the ballot for their party’s respective primaries in March and September.
“There is no other option to select if you are enrolled in a specific party,” explained Haggstrom. “If the voter wants a ballot from the opposite party, they must reregister to vote as either the other party or as unenrolled. All applications must be signed by the voter.”
Haggstrom urged voters to follow the instructions on the vote-by-mail postcards before sending them to the Town Clerk’s Office.
“Our office has already received over 20 postcard applications from unenrolled voters who are not indicating which ballots they would like, or the applications are not signed,” said Haggstrom. “The application has a spot for voters to provide a phone number, and when people register to vote, there is a spot where a contact number can be provided as well. It’s extremely important that voters provide us a phone number for when these types of situations come up. If a voter has an incomplete application and has provided a phone number either on the postcard, or we have it on file in our voter registration system, we will make every effort to contact the voter to complete their application so that they can correct the mistake and be sent a ballot. If no phone number is provided, the voter will not be sent a ballot, and can either vote during in-person early voting or on Election Day. If they contact us on their own, wondering where their ballot is, provided it’s before the deadline, we can correct the application error and mail the ballot out.”
Haggstrom said the deadline for townspeople to submit a vote-by-mail postcard application for the presidential primary to the Town Clerk’s Office is Tuesday, Feb. 27 at 5 p.m.
“It is listed on the vote by mail postcard in red bold text,” said Haggstrom.
Haggstrom said the Town Clerk’s Office has received almost 600 postcard applications over the past two weeks. She expects that number to increase.
“Please be patient with your election officials and poll workers,” said Haggstrom. “We are doing the absolute best we can to keep up with the demand. As always, I want to reassure the voters that the Town Clerk’s Office always remains committed to upholding the highest degree of integrity of the town of Lynnfield’s election process through fair, open and consistent administration of all federal, state and local election laws.”
The Select Board will be holding a public hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 12 on whether the town should “opt out” of the VOTES Act’s provision to allow mail-in voting for the Town Election on Tuesday, April 9. The public hearing will begin at 6:10 p.m. in the Al Merritt Media and Cultural Center.