In the Massachusetts primary election on Sept. 1, 6,637 Belmont residents cast to determine the Democratic or Republican nominee for races in the November general election.
Of those votes, about 75% were cast through a mail-in ballot, according to Town Clerk Ellen O’Brien Cushman, with many being turned in on Election Day, Sept. 1. Exact numbers for mail-in ballots were not available at the time of publication due to the recount of the Suffolk and Middlesex County State Senate election.
“That’s pretty unusual,” Cushman said.
In general, Belmont’s turnout — about 35% — was much higher than is typical for a primary election. Several notable races, many with direct Belmont ties, may have driven the increase in participation.
Belmont had several longtime residents, including state Sen. Will Brownsberger and Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan, on the ballot facing challenges. Resident Nomita Ganguly also challenged state Rep. Dave Rogers for his seat in the Massachusetts House.
“That’s going to definitely drive interest, and so we expected that we would see a little bit higher participation,” Cushman said.
While three-quarters of Belmont’s ballots may have been cast through the mail, the town’s voters are not alone in their proclivity for early or mail-in voting.
In Arlington, 6,473 out of the 12,356 ballots cast were cast as either mail-in ballot or early voting. According to Arlington Town Clerk Juli Brazile, the town typically sees about half of its ballots cast early. In Lexington, 4,517 of the 7,025 ballots were mailed in. In Weston, 1,130 of 1,860 ballots were mailed in — more than Town Clerk Janet Murphy said she expected.
In the 2024 general election, 1 in 3 Americans voted by mail, according to the United States Democracy Center.
“There are people who are afraid that they’re not going to get to the polls on Election Day,” Cushman said. “…It’s not just a convenience thing. It’s the ‘what about if I’m called out of town at the last minute, and what would I do?’”
Voting by mail can be a fail-safe for many people, she added. From traffic to daycare pickups to doctor appointments, the list of why someone may be unable to make it to the polls by 8 p.m. on election day is long.
The Ins and Outs of Voting by Mail
Voting by mail, or through an absentee ballot, can trace its origins to the War of 1812, though it became more popular during the Civil War and the 1864 presidential race between President Abraham Lincoln and Democratic candidate George McClellan, according to the Smithsonian. It wasn’t until 1978, when California legalized it, that a person could vote by mail without an excuse.
A 2022 Massachusetts law signed by then-Gov. Charlie Baker cemented residents’ ability to vote by mail without needing an excuse. The law allows registered voters to vote by mail for any presidential, state, or municipal primary or election and requires the secretary of state to send out mail-in ballot applications, with return postage guaranteed, to registered voters 45 days before any state election while hosting an online portal where voters can request ballots in multiple languages.
In Belmont, Cushman sends out vote-by-mail applications each January using town census data.
“It allows us to sort of front-end all of that work, spread it out between January and April for our town election, and then continue to receive those paper ones long before the state sends those postcards,” she said.
When election season comes around, Cushman said the ballots pour in, and the work really begins. By law, the clerk’s office must review the signature on every ballot to ensure it matches that of the person who requested it.
“This is a step that takes a lot of time to make sure that we’re not rejecting a ballot that looks like it might be someone who signed one of the two things quickly,” she said.
The clerk’s office can begin counting ballots nine days before the election if it gives two days’ notice to the public that ballots will begin to be opened and deposited into the ballot tabulator. The counting process happens multiple times leading up to Election Day as more ballots are delivered. Some ballots are counted and recorded by hand if the paper is stained (usually from coffee, Cushman said).
Though the ballots are counted, they do not calculate results until the final count on Election Day.
Cushman said even without the significant number of mail-in ballots earlier this month, the turnout likely still would have been higher than a typical primary.
“Vote by mail certainly has not proven in Belmont that it’s driving higher turnout,” she said.
