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Calendars, packets, papers, and check-lists cover the tables inside New Bedford’s elections office. Five months will pass before city elections take place this fall, on Oct. 7 and Nov. 4, but already this office is humming — and it’s maybe a little more tense than usual.
“We’ll have to pay extra to have things expedited,” says Manuel DeBrito, the chair of New Bedford’s election commission. “And we have to be wrapped up by [Oct.] 13th … That’s the drop-dead date.”
DeBrito is poring over a calendar on his desk, cross-referencing against the election calendar that his office just released, already planning down to the minutes that he’ll have in October to turn around the back-end work that makes the democratic process possible in a city of 100,000.
Because the City Council rejected election officials’ advice — including DeBrito’s, his staff’s, and the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s — New Bedford will be the only city in Massachusetts to host its preliminary election in October this year. That leaves a short window for voters to return mail-in ballots for the Nov. 4 general election.
This fall, the three full-time employees of New Bedford’s elections office will have a lot of work to prepare those ballots — and little room for error.
“It makes it so much more difficult for the voters,” DeBrito said. “And I didn’t expect it to be difficult” to introduce an earlier preliminary date, DeBrito said. “Other cities didn’t receive that same pushback.”
Elections experts in Massachusetts lamented that advice from the local Election Commission was not followed. “I think that’s unfortunate for a couple of reasons,” said Charles Stewart, a political science professor and director of the Election Data and Science Lab at MIT. “You need time to make sure that everything gets put together correctly.”
“From the voter perspective, the longer you have, it’s just a longer window to participate,” said Rachael Cobb, associate professor of political science at Suffolk University. “But from an administrator perspective, election officials are already so strained. And this tight turnaround is already extremely challenging.”
Election directors in other Massachusetts cities also said DeBrito was right to recommend a preliminary election date earlier than Oct. 7. An October preliminary “is too close to the [general] election in the modern era,” said Will Rosenberry, a former state elections official who is now the elections director in Lowell. “It puts the orderly administration of the general election at risk.”
Lowell’s City Council approved a change to its municipal election to Sept. 9, as Rosenberry advised. “It’s unfortunate that the New Bedford City Council did not heed the election commission’s warning.”
Mark Pacheco, the director of elections for Taunton, which will vote Sept. 23, said that “October was never on the table” for the preliminary in his city. “Unlike a state election, it’s our office that is making [the ballot], proofing it, getting it printed, and testing the ballots. You need time,” he said.
“You really want to pace yourself [when creating the ballots] and not make any mistakes,” Pacheco said. “And give the voters as much time as possible … The quick turnaround would be tough for the voters, too.”
All these experts agreed that a September election would have better accommodated mail-in voting — an increasingly popular way to vote in local, state, and federal elections. In the last presidential election, in which Republicans outperformed their results in recent years, 32% of the New Bedford electorate (or 11,233 voters) used mail-in voting.
A thin margin of error
DeBrito said that his office — and thousands of New Bedford voters — will have a thin “margin of error” to vote by mail this year.
“We’re talking about a couple of days, if everything goes perfectly,” DeBrito said. “There’s no guarantee.”
The race will begin on Friday, Oct. 10, at exactly 5 p.m.
That is the last day and hour to file a recount petition with the Board of Elections. If no recount is requested, DeBrito and his staff will send their draft of the general election ballot on Monday, Oct. 13, to the contractor who prints the ballots.
That contractor is based in Nebraska, DeBrito said, and he is planning to pay a fee for expedited service, hoping to “miraculously” get the finalized ballots by Oct. 15.
The finalized paper ballots need to be checked rigorously for spelling, candidate addresses, wards, and bar code legibility with the voting machines. Each of New Bedford’s six wards receives an individualized ballot, because residents vote for their ward’s representation on City Council.
The ballots for each ward and precinct also come with a flash drive and a small compact disk. These contain the same information digitally, and help the voting machines, tabulators, and Automarks to run. This system allows for faster, more efficient voting and counting (and is a built-in check for elections officials to compare paper ballots with digital totals). But the drives and disks need to be checked against every voting machine in every precinct.
Another contractor assists the election staff with the checking and testing of the city’s 36 voting machines (each of the six wards has six precincts). DeBrito hopes all of the testing will be completed by Oct. 20. And if every ballot and machine is operating perfectly, then mail-in ballots can be sent out.
In this scenario, voters could receive their ballots between Oct. 22 and 24. That would give them the next week (between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1) to fill out their ballots and put them in the mail. To have votes counted in the election, mail-in ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 4.
“The amount of work that goes into elections behind-the-scenes is enormous,” said Cobb, the Suffolk political science professor, who is also a board member of MassVOTE, a voting rights advocacy group. “And election administrators are literally working year round on everything related to elections.”
She continued, “It is precise work, it is legal work, it is hard work, and it takes time. It is a logistical masterpiece to pull off this democratic process.”
What happens if everything doesn’t go perfectly?
There are many ways for this timeline to be delayed. DeBrito pointed out that much of the process is outside his control — including the external contractor who prints the ballots, whether the voting machines are functioning properly, and how quickly the post office can deliver mail.
Every link in this chain has a plan and a contingency — even the external partners. For example, DeBrito said he is in contact with the post office, which is prepared to process election-related mail in New Bedford (rather than sending it to Providence for processing, which can happen for lots of New Bedford mail).
“It’s not a matter of being able to handle the workload,” DeBrito said. His office is highly competent, he said, but it’s the “timing” that can jeopardize people’s ability to vote by mail.
A major disruption to the timeline, for example, could happen if someone requests a recount of the preliminary election. In that case, DeBrito said he and his staff would work over the weekend of Oct. 11-12. Everything needs to be sent to the printer by Monday, Oct. 13, at the latest, DeBrito said.
After that, ballots with a typo or a malfunctioning barcode, even weather delays or employee illness could cut into the short amount of time to turn everything around. DeBrito said he’ll be hiring a temp worker to help with packing and preparing all the supplies for election sites so that his staff can focus on the sensitive election work.
The worst- case scenario, DeBrito said, is that these delays force voters into an unusually short turnaround. It could be that voters have one or two days to fill out their mail-in ballots and put them in the mail.
Failing to accomplish these feats, the senior citizens, working parents, or anyone who enjoys the convenience of voting by mail may lose their opportunity to vote.
“Hopefully the ballots come and there’s no issues,” DeBrito said.
Popularity of mail-in voting spikes
Mail-in voting was only introduced to municipal elections in New Bedford in 2021, according to DeBrito. At the time, it was still a novel — and probably underused — voting method for many. Turnout in that 2021 election was also the lowest in recent memory, at 10.8%, owing to the pandemic.
In 2023, DeBrito and other election commissioners around the state began to notice that mail-in voting was rapidly increasing in popularity — and that the window for local elections office to create, check, mail, and process those ballots was exceedingly narrow.
More than 11% of New Bedford voters (1,009 people) used mail-in voting in 2023. That was up significantly from 2021, when 5.6% of voters mailed in their ballots (377 people, owing to the lower turnout).
“Things have changed so much,” said DeBrito, adding, “Mail-in voting is the biggest difference.”
Misinformation is the next biggest change that DeBrito said he’s noticed since he started working on New Bedford’s elections, in 2017. “Now it’s like they want to confuse voters,” DeBrito said, referencing people who spread misinformation about the voting process.
“Everyone should have the opportunity to vote, and vote by mail or go to the precinct if they want,” DeBrito said. And he noted that being able to vote by mail is required by law.
The tight timeframe to run New Bedford’s elections this year, however, worries DeBrito. But he has come up with plans and contingencies to protect mail-in voting, which he has said is still among the most secure and transparent ways to participate in elections.
Preparing for this year’s election
Papers in once-neat stacks surround DeBrito’s office, and they include his many, many checklists.
There are checklists for what the chair of the elections commission (that’s DeBrito) needs to do and when; checklists for the staff; and checklists for partners around the city — the volunteers, paid contractors, and other city agencies that make elections run smoothly.
These checklists are highly specific. On DeBrito’s personal checklist, the bolded headlines read “6-9 months in advance,” “3-6 months in advance,” then narrow down to the week, day before, day of, and day after the election. One bullet-point in the “Week Before” section reads: “Bring 28 working Automark machines down from attic.” Another says, “Confirm with locations / movers delivery and pick up dates / times of election equipment.”
New Bedford’s preliminary elections — the nonpartisan contests that decide who appears on the final ballot — happen on the fourth Tuesday before the general election. And it’s probably been that way since 1922, when state law mandated the timeframe for preliminary elections.
But the city and its elections have changed over the last century. Those Automark machines, for example, have helped expand who has a voice in government by providing audio assistance to blind, visually impaired, or disabled citizens as they vote. (Automark machines assist in the reading and marking of ballots, but do not count them, DeBrito said. Precinct wardens can also provide assistance.)
The rigors of running a modern election include complex logistics, detailed transparency requirements, and many efforts to improve accessibility — of which mail-in voting is the most recent and significant.
“Massachusetts was late to the game, and really has only established since the pandemic no-excuse mail-in voting,” said Stewart, the MIT professor.
Some New Bedford city councilors said they voted against a September preliminary election date because they thought it would confuse voters. But Stewart said he thought concerns about voter confusion don’t hold up. “Most people in New Bedford don’t vote in preliminaries. One of the reasons people don’t vote is that an October date is not a standard date to vote in primaries.” He noted that state primaries in Massachusetts typically happen in September.
Stewart continued, “Knowing what I know about voters and campaigns, I would bet a September [preliminary] would get more voters.”
This fall, all 11 City Council seats are on the ballot. So are three seats on the School Committee. Nomination papers are now available. Filing deadlines for candidates are on Aug. 19 and Sept. 2.
Races that have more than double the contenders than available seats will be contested in the Oct. 7 preliminary election (for example, if 11 or more people run for the five At-Large Councilor seats). Top vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 4 general election.
Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org
Is there a legal procedure that would allow the the council vote to be changed?
Sounds to me like those holding positions are shaking in their boots. So, New Bedford residents go and vote and show them reverse physcology.
Why does the city Council have a say in the voting process at all? Isn’t this like putting the fox in charge of the coop? Seems like they are actively trying to make it harder to vote so they can keep their jobs.
Agreed. They all need to have a serving time limit. Just like the Mayor, he changes the term from 2 yrs to 4 so he doesn’t have a chance of losing. New Bedford Unite, let’s clean house in city hall and 1/2 of the school committee. There are the knowledgeable ones being squashed by the others who knows how to through their weight around.
Why is our City Council going against all of the other municipalities in our Commonwealth in terms of when primary (preliminary) elections take place? It stands to reason that since there are more ways for people to vote–and that is a very good thing–there should be more days between primary (preliminary) elections and election day so that all votes can be tallied as correctly as possible? So what that we New Bedford voters would have to adjust to the change! It is insulting to think that we could not.
It’s time to vote in younger people to the Council who aren’t afraid of change. It’s time to vote out city council members who think the electorate are idiots.