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Republican Brendalee Smith received enough write-in votes to secure a place on the November ballot in the 10th Bristol District, setting up a challenge to Democratic state Rep. Mark Sylvia.
The district includes Fairhaven, Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester, and parts of Acushnet and New Bedford.
The secretary of the commonwealth’s office confirmed Tuesday that Smith received 185 write-in votes in the Sept. 1 Republican primary, surpassing the 150 required to qualify.
Smith said she knew on primary day that she had received 159 votes, even before results came in from Acushnet and Mattapoisett. She contacted the secretary’s office Tuesday to confirm the total.
“I knew I was already there, but it felt even better to get to 185,” she said.
A separate Republican write-in effort fell short in New Bedford. Elijah DeSousa received 88 votes, according to the secretary of state, leaving him below the threshold to qualify in the 13th Bristol District, which includes the South End and portions of the West End. He sought to challenge Democratic state Rep. Antonio Cabral, who will now run unopposed.
DeSousa, a New Bedford construction-sales estimator, founded the 47,000-member Facebook group Citizens Against Eversource last year. The group proposed three statewide ballot initiatives to change the way utilities companies charge their customers, but organizers did not collect enough signatures to make the ballot.
Smith said she and her 50-member team have “all hands on deck” now in preparation for November.
“We have someone building the website, our Facebook page is going up, all of our social media. We’re about to send everything to print as far as any of our print materials are concerned,” she said.
Smith is the director of community development at Rebuilding Lives, a nonprofit in New Bedford, and CEO of Amel Technology.
In 2023, Smith ran unsuccessfully for Fairhaven School Committee. During that campaign, The Light reported that she criticized critical race theory and said it should not be added to the curriculum. The following year, Smith won a one-year term. She lost her reelection bid in 2025, finishing third.
Smith said running has been both exciting and, at times, overwhelming, particularly because she decided to enter the race only eight days before the primary.
“When I saw that Mark [Sylvia] was running unopposed and I thought let me throw my hat in because it’s a democratic thing to do, give people a choice,” Smith said.
“We’re just going to keep building on the momentum that we created.”
Manny DeBrito, head of New Bedford’s Board of Election Commissioners, said workers hand-count write-in votes on ballots kept sealed in the city’s vault. Participants can question or challenge which candidate a vote was intended for.
“In this case, we split the ballots received in blocks of 20. Then we have teams of two: someone that’s going to read the vote, someone’s going to tally it,” DeBrito said.
Once workers finish counting, another person tallies the totals, he said.
The secretary’s office said Smith filed the required nomination acceptance paperwork, which was due Sept. 3 at 5 p.m.
Email Eleonora Bianchi at ebianch@newbedfordlight.org
