Election Day is next week, but over at the Belmont Town Clerk’s office, it’s felt more like an election month.
With the rise of early voting, Town Clerk Ellen O’Brien Cushman and her staff of three have been all-hands-on-deck for weeks, setting up early voting stations and mailing out ballots to residents who’ve requested to vote by mail.
In reality, though, the preparation for this election has been going on for much longer, Cushman said.
“People are waking up to the election that we’ve been preparing for for a few years,” Cushman said.
The town clerk’s office in Belmont handles various clerical tasks like public record-keeping, pet licensing, raffle permits, business registration, marriage licenses, recording births and deaths and more.
But managing the electoral process is likely the most visible role played by town clerks and the one that draws the most scrutiny.
Cushman, a lifelong Belmont resident, first joined the town clerk’s office in 2008 as a staffer, returning to work after pausing her career to raise her children. A former operations manager for Digital Equipment Corporation, the Maynard-based computer maker acquired by Compaq in 1998, Cushman said that the breadth of the responsibilities in the clerk’s office was a big appeal.
When the clerk at the time announced plans to retire in 2012, Cushman decided to run for the elected position.
“I love what I do, I love representing the people of town,” she said. “I work for the 25,000 people.”
The electoral process has changed a lot since Cushman first joined the clerk’s office. Still, there have been plenty of curve balls over the years, like during the 2012 election, when then-resident Mitt Romney ran for president on the Republican ticket.
Both the primary and the general election saw Romney come to cast his vote in person, accompanied by a sizable press corps.
“We had the Secret Service working with the police and with us making sure our polling places were up to snuff,” Cushman said. “There were definitely some challenges to make sure that we met their requirements, but when I look at it now, those really opened my eyes to possibilities.”
With election integrity in the spotlight, Cushman said, the state and federal governments have focused on providing training and ensuring compliance over the past several years with a wide range of aspects of running an election, including cybersecurity and physical security.
A major change since the last presidential election is the VOTES Act of 2022, which greatly expanded mail-in and in-person early voting for all elections in the Commonwealth.
“It makes a big difference,” Cushman said. “It makes it more accessible and convenient for people.”
About 7,000 of Belmont’s 18,700 residents have requested to vote by mail, or dropped off completed ballots at Town Hall, Cushman said, while a few hundred had voted in person as of last week, with that number expected to climb closer to the election.
Tracking, confirming, and securely handling all of the ballots takes an immense amount of work, and the town relies on poll workers who help with the election and are supervised by the clerk’s office.
Those poll workers also help in shifts at Belmont’s polling places, where up to 10,000 residents are expected on Election Day itself.
To deal with any lines or delays, Cushman recommends voters be patient. The poll workers’ process is methodical and deliberate in order to ensure that all requirements are met and that everything goes smoothly.
“A little bit of patience and a smile is going to go a long way for our workers, as well as voters. And yes, you’ll get your sticker at the end,” she said.
To find your voting location, visit the town clerk’s website: tinyurl.com/BelmontVotingInfo
