SOUTHAMPTON — The state Elections Division this week began sending out early mail-in voting postcards to all registered voters.
This voting option, which was temporarily put into place during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, has now become a permanent change after Gov. Charlie Baker signed the election reform bill, known as the VOTES Act, into law in late June.
Unless municipalities opt out, early voting by mail is required for all local elections and preliminaries, according to the law.
“The state Elections Division has said that they should be arriving in voters’ mailboxes by July 11 (Monday) or around there, but over 1 million postcards are being sent out,” Town Clerk Luci Dalton said. “Once they arrive at the clerk’s office, they will be input into the voter registration system. When ballots arrive at our office, they will be mailed out to the voter to cast their vote and mail back to us.”
Additionally, mail-in applications are available at the Southampton Town Hall and on the town’s website at townofsouthampton.org/administration/administration-2/town-clerk/elections/.
The law also codifies the early in-person voting option for all elections.
Starting Friday, July 22, the voter registration deadline for all elections and town meetings will be 10 calendar days before the date of the meeting or election. Early in-person voting for the Tuesday, Sept. 6 state primary will be available from Saturday, Aug. 27, through Friday, Sept. 2 in the town clerk’s office during normal office hours, said Dalton.
Early in-person voting for the Tuesday, Nov. 8 general election will run from Saturday, Oct. 22, through Friday, Nov. 4, also during normal office hours in the town clerk’s office.
The deadline to apply for the state primary is Monday, Aug. 29, at 5 p.m., and for the general election is Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 5 p.m.
“People are liking the convenience of mailing it back in, so we’re expecting a big turnout in mail-in applications,” said Dalton.
During the Nov. 3, 2020 election, she said 2,800 mail-in ballots were sent out, 117 absentee ballots were cast and 1,164 cast early ballots.
Contact the town clerk’s office at 413-527-8392 or townclerk@townofsouthampton.org for more information.
In conjunction with Pascommuck Conservation Trust’s 40th anniversary celebration on Saturday, naturalists Tom Lautzenheiser and Marty Klein will take visitors on treks through the 125-acre Park Hill Orchard from 9 a.m. to noon.
In addition to the guided tours, guitarist Tony Silva will be performing and donuts will be provided.
Park Hill Orchard is located at 82 Park Hill Road in Easthampton.
Edwards Public Library is hosting a hunt for “Wiley Fox” via radio waves and antennas on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the town’s pavilion.
The hunt will be led by ham radio expert Roy Thompson.
Ham radio operators, or amateur radio operators, use radio frequencies to communicate with people across town, across the world or into space.
Thompson, a resident of Westfield, was first introduced to Morse code in the 1960s as a Boy Scout project with his father. Morse code is an arrangement of dots, dashes and spaces that represents letters of the alphabet, numerals or punctuation marks that are transmitted as electrical pulses of varied lengths or analogous mechanical or visual signals.
Youth Librarian Johanna Rodriguez Douglass said that this will be the third time that Thompson has led an activity related to ham radio at the library and was excited for its return.
“Programming like this helps reach out to a different group of learners through an old-fashioned way of communicating and thinking about the world,” said Douglass. “I wanted to bring it back because I love it and I want to help Roy keep this hobby alive.”
During the event, Thompson said he explains how amateur radio can be utilized for search and rescue such as a downed airplane or a hiker lost in the wilderness.
“This was very popular when I was a kid in Boy Scouts, but it can be harder to keep kids interested these days in comparison to cell phones,” he said. “But this is an outdoor activity and something they’ve likely never done before, so it should be a really fun experience.”
For the hunt, Thompson uses a hidden transmitter that is called a fox and “hunters” or participants are tasked with locating the frequency using direction-finding equipment of a handheld radio and directional antenna.
“They’ll follow the antenna where the signal is strongest,” he said.
The hunt will be on foot with interested participants meeting at the pavilion.
For more information about the event, contact Douglass at 413-527-9480 or jdouglass@cwmars.org.
Emily Thurlow can be reached at ethurlow@gazettenet.com.
