Just under 18,000 ballots cast in the Massachusetts primary were rejected, as a flood of residents voted by mail for the first time, according to figures released by the Secretary of State at the request of the Boston Globe.
In total, over 1.7 million people voted in the primary. Of that, 814,013 arrived by mail according to Secretary of State William Galvin’s office – with thousands of people choosing mail-in voting for the first time to take advantage of new election rules enacted due to the pandemic.
Of the 17,872 rejected ballots, roughly half – 8,419 – were tossed because they arrived late. Another 3,124 ballots were missing signatures or were missing the provided mail-in ballot envelope. 1,100 ballots were rejected for “other” reasons.
The 17,872 ballots thrown out from the primary accounted for slightly less than 2 percent of the 1 million-plus cast early or by absentee. More than 1.7 million people voted in total.
Still, with roughly half of voters choosing to cast their ballot by mail amid the ever-present coronavirus pandemic, the raw rejection totals soared beyond that of recent elections, and were largely driven by tardy ballots or in some cases, voter error. –Boston Globe
“It’s a very unfortunate statistic,” said attorney Oren Sellstrom, litigation director for Lawyers for Civil Rights. “It indicates that thousands of people were disenfranchised in the 2020 primary, and thousands more are at risk in the general election if we don’t improve our practices.” – READ MORE
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