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A few thousand New Bedford voters will walk out of their polling place on Tuesday with a distinctive souvenir of the day: not a common “I Voted” sticker, but one designed by a local student, representing their particular vision of voting.
From more than 100 young people citywide who competed with a design, six winners were chosen from five schools. They came up with whales, lighthouses, anchors and ship’s wooden wheels. They drew traditional Americana: bald eagles and flags. One drew hands reaching across a flag.
The contest and youth and parent engagement efforts are part of city elections chief Manny DeBrito’s campaign to drive turnout in the runup to Election Day. Voters will decide contests including a historic presidential election, races for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, state legislature, Bristol County Commission, and five ballot questions. Polling hours across the state are 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin on Monday morning forecast a record voter turnout, due in large part to the presidential race between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be a major party candidate, and former President Donald Trump.
Speaking at the State House, Galvin said that based on early voting and keen interest in this election, he expected the total vote to top the previous record high of 3.65 million votes cast set in 2020. That was 76% of registered voters.
A sticker design contest for local students was part of a New Bedford campaign to drive voter turnout.
(Debra O’Malley, a spokesperson for Galvin’s office, said the office prefers to use total vote rather than percentages of registered voters, as voter lists may not necessarily be keeping up with people moving out of the state.)
A third of Massachusetts registered voters have already cast ballots by mail or in-person early voting, according to Galvin’s office.
DeBrito said he expected New Bedford turnout to be about on par with previous presidential elections, about 63% of 70,890 registered voters.
Security is being stepped up at polling places, with more police in uniform and plainclothes, and more lighting installed at eight polling places, Mayor Jon Mitchell announced last week.
In New Bedford, the percentage of registered voters who cast ballots in presidential elections during the last 20 years has ranged from a high of 63% in 2012 to a low of 55% in 2020, the pandemic election.
Statewide, before the record pandemic turnout of 2020, the previous four presidential election turnouts ranged from 71% in 2004 to 75% in 2016.
At last count on Monday morning, DeBrito said that 11,804 voters, or 17% of those registered in New Bedford, had cast ballots early by mail or in person. That’s just a bit more than half the rate of early voting across Massachusetts.
Nearly half of voters across the country who cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election have already voted as of Monday morning, according to The Washington Post.
City turnout runs much higher in presidential years than for local and state elections. Local election turnouts can be as low as the teens, preliminaries can dip into the single digits.
DeBrito, among others, has seen room for improvement.
Since 2018, he’s been drawing on his experience as a youth basketball coach to try to engage young people — and by extension their parents — in civic affairs, including voting. He’s been recruiting young people to work at the polls, to prod their parents to vote, and, this year, to design “I Voted” stickers.
“Think about how much influence you guys do have,” DeBrito told students at Bridgewater State University at an event in October, as his direct youth engagement effort expanded this year to include two colleges, BSU and Bristol Community College.
He told about 20 young people at the Rondileau Student Union building at BSU that their generation’s courage in speaking up about political issues “gives me hope for the future.”
Ryan Lyons, Fall River’s elections director, urged the students to “find a cause, find a candidate you truly believe in, and stand up.”
One cause clearly engaging young people is the war in Gaza, and U.S. support for Israel, said BSU students Sophia Vitorina and Josh Neff, who attended the event.
That might or might not be driving turnout, as Neff, a sophomore from Freetown, said he can see how a lot of “left-leaning people” might be sitting out the election.
Vitorina, a sophomore from North Attleboro, said abortion rights were likely to drive voting among young people in the first presidential election since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
“I don’t know of anyone who expected Roe to be repealed,” Vitorina said.
The two colleges are added to the direct engagement that DeBrito had previously done at three public and two private schools in New Bedford and Dartmouth, including recruiting students who were at least 16 years old to work at the polls.
This year, he said, the number of student poll workers jumped from 28 to 40 from seven schools: BSU and Bristol Community College, New Bedford High School, New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School, Bishop Stang High School, Global Learning Charter School, and Nazarene Christian Academy.
And this year, across the city, students were challenged to come up with a design for an “I Voted” sticker. One winner was chosen for each of six city wards, and 500 stickers will be printed for each of six precincts in each ward, a total of 18,000, DeBrito said.
Two youngsters decided on whales.
Christina Bates, an eighth grader at Roosevelt Middle School, drew a whale’s tail surfacing from the waves with a striped lighthouse in the background. Ayla-Lynn Pimentel, a seventh grader at the Global Learning Charter School, went for a red-white-and-blue stars and stripes whale cavorting next to an anchor.
Amber Rosonina of New Bedford High School drew “I Voted Today” in a graffiti-like image. Kelvin Miranda DePina, a fifth grader at Gomes Elementary School, went for traditional Americana: a bald eagle and flag. Yeral Guerra-Rivas and Ella Levesque of the St. Teresa of Calcutta School drew an anchor with a ship’s wheel, and hands reaching toward each other with an American flag backdrop.
DeBrito said a previous civic awareness activity — a scavenger hunt game with public affairs clues — was getting pretty good reviews from young folks, but this year is a step up.
“I think they were more excited about the stickers,” said DeBrito, who predicted that another sticker contest will be staged in elections to come.
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org
Any idea why New Bedford turnout is so much lower than the state? Is it just that a higher percentage of people are working?