THE NEWS CONTINUES POSTED HERE:
TOP NEWS: Fascists Set to Take Power in Italy for First Time Since Mussolini
COMMON DREAMS EDWARD SNOWDEN GIORGIA MELONI Manchin's Dirty Deal NEO-FASCIST ITALY NUCLEAR WEAPONS STEVE BANNON
POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: Not signed, sealed nor delivered
GET THIS:
MAIL-BALLOT POST-MORTEM — Election officials rejected more than 11,000 mail ballots cast in the state primaries, the bulk of them because they arrived too late.
Of the 480,255 ballots cast by mail, 11,412 were received and rejected and another 1,039 were marked as “failed delivery,” either because a ballot was returned to local election officials by USPS or a voter said they didn’t receive it and requested a replacement. The 11,412 rejected ballots account for 2.3 percent of all votes cast by mail and just over 1 percent of the 1,052,414 ballots cast overall in the state primary, according to data from the secretary of state's office.
The majority of rejected mail ballots, 8,070, were tossed because they didn’t show up before 8 p.m. on primary day. Another 1,088 were discarded because the voter didn’t sign the envelope containing their ballot, while another 751 ballots were rejected because they were missing envelopes.
Among the other reasons ballots were rejected:
— 327 came in from people who had already voted;
— 99 were “spoiled,” meaning the voter made a mistake and requested a replacement;
— 27 were cast by people not registered to vote;
— 32 were rejected because the voter died.
Compare that to the 2020 state primary, when 814,013 ballots were mailed in, 14,843 were received and rejected and another 3,029 were marked as failed delivery. The 14,843 rejected ballots accounted for 1.7 percent of mail ballots cast and just under 1 percent of the 1,706,992 ballots cast overall. In that primary election:
— 8,419 mail ballots came in too late;
— 3,124 were missing a signature or a ballot envelope;
— 1,771 came from someone who had already voted in person;
— 176 were spoiled;
— 44 were from voters who died;
— 34 were from people no longer registered to vote.
MassVOTE’s Vanessa Snow said it’s “frustrating and disappointing” to see more than 11,000 mail ballots rejected this year. And she said the more than 8,000 ballots that arrived late show “how crucial it is” for voters to return their mail ballots “as quickly as possible" ahead of the general election.
Luckily for tardy primary voters, this next deadline is more forgiving: General-election ballots need to be postmarked by Election Day — not received by it, as they were in the primary — and can count as long as they make it to a local election office by 5 p.m. on Nov. 12.
“Obviously we’re never happy with any rejection rate,” Secretary of State Bill Galvin told Playbook. “It’s not exactly perfect, but we’re getting as close as we can under the circumstances and I think the grace period [after the general election] is a great help.”
ACCESS LAW BOSTON FEDERAL RESERVE FAILED BIRTH CONTROL LAW HOLYOKE SOLDIERS HOME MAIL IN BALLOTS MARTHA'S VINEYARD MIGRANTS MBTA POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook TAX CAP LAW WORK FROM HOME
RSN: Matt Ford | The Supreme Court's Public Legitimacy Crisis Has Arrived
AMAZON BEEF DEFORESTATION EDWARD SNOWDEN GEO GROUP GIORGIA MELONI ICE SURVEILLANCE MARK MEADOWS MICHAEL FLYNN MIKE LINDELL NEO-FASCIST ITALY REPUBLICAN ABORTION BANS RSN SUPREME COURT
Reflections on a New Year
DAN RATHER ELLIOT KIRSCHNER NEW YEAR ROSH HASHANAH
