Mail-In Balloting Deemed Successful

Secretary of State William Galvin says that the state's first attempt at widespread mail-in voting was very successful and that applications for mail-in ballots for the November General Election will begin to go out to registered voters by the end of this week. Galvin also says that he is anticipating that an online portal required by the Legislature for voters to request early and absentee ballots will be operational by the end of the month.

According to an article in the Berkshire Eagle Wednesday written by Matt Murphy of the Statehouse News Service, some things will need to change before November, when turnout and the volume of mail-in ballots is expected to be even higher than it was for the primaries.

Galvin says that additional funding is going to be need for the November election to go smoothly. He told the Statehouse News Service this week that he has already spoken to the Baker administration about obtaining funding to cover the cost of mailing applications and ballots to registered voters interested in voting by mail in the general election and he is optimistic that the administration will be cooperative.

According to the article, Galvin says that he wished he had even more money to help local election clerks hire staff to run the polls and process ballots, and that he was discouraged by reports that Senate Republicans in Congress had rolled out a pared back stimulus bill Tuesday that did not contain funding for election operations.