NORTHAMPTON — Massachusetts is one of more than a dozen states where voters will cast their presidential primary ballot on “Super Tuesday.” On the same day, some cities and towns hold local elections, making it a busy time for city and town clerks.
“I really have not had a spare second to think about how much we’ll have this year,” Easthampton City Clerk Barbara LaBombard said when asked what kind of turnout she anticipated.
Holyoke City Clerk Brenna Murphy McGee expects around a 30% turnout on Tuesday, while Northampton City Clerk Pamela Powers is projecting a higher-than-average turnout with more than 55% of voters casting ballots.
Voters around the Valley will also be making decisions on local elections. In Northampton, residents will decide whether or not the city can permanently raise property taxes in a Proposition 2½ override vote. South Hadley is also holding its annual town election on Tuesday with contested elections, including two incumbents and one challenger vying for two Select Board seats.
The Second Hampden and Hampshire District — which includes Southampton, Easthampton and Holyoke — will be voting in a special state Senate primary to replace Donald Humason, R-Westfield, who left the Senate to become the mayor of Westfield.
Clerks also warned that in cities and towns with multiple elections going on, voters will need to fill out multiple ballots. In Northampton, for example, voters will fill out two separate ballots: one for the presidential primary and one for the override. Powers encouraged people to be patient. “It’s going to take a while to get through, I think, a lot of the voters.”
Ahead of Tuesday, many in the commonwealth already voted. For the first time, Massachusetts residents were able to vote early in a presidential primary. In the early voting period last week, 190,000 people voted in the Democratic primary and 34,000 voted in the Republican primary, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin said Monday, according to Boston’s WBUR radio.
Locally, some city clerks saw less turnout in early voting than they expected. Roughly 1,300 people voted early in Northampton, according to Powers. “Which is a little bit less than I had anticipated,” she said. “I thought we would have at least double that.”
“We had 495 people vote — 2%,” said McGee. “It was a lot less than I expected.”
Southampton had 300 of its roughly 4,400 registered voters go to the polls early, according to Town Clerk Lucille Dalton. Eight percent of registered voters cast ballots early in Easthampton, the majority of which were Democrats, according to LaBombard.
Polls on Tuesday will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters can find their polling location on the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts website, www.WhereDoIVoteMA.com.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com