Secretary Bill Galvin expects record voter turn out in the Bay State

The 2024 election will likely break the records set in the last presidential election, according to Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin.

Galvin, during a State House press conference held Monday, said that city and town elections staff have already received ballots from 1.7 million eligible voters in the state.

“We’ve had a remarkable response to our early voting program,” Galvin said.

This year’s election is the first conducted under the state’s Votes Act, which codified a number of pandemic era voting access measures into state law, like no-excuse absentee ballots and universal early voting, and the public has clearly chosen to take advantage of the available options, Galvin said.

According to Galvin’s office, as of Monday afternoon more than one in three eligible voters returned a mail ballot or had voted at an early polling site. Of 1,381,733 mail ballots sent out, 1,133,166 have been returned, for a total return rate of 82%. In addition, 596,938 ballots were cast at an early voting site, which closed last Friday.

In total, according to Galvin’s staff, 1,730,104 voters have made their voices heard, representing 33.6% of registered voters.

“We expect that to rise as more ballots are returned to us. That means we’re going to have what I believe will be a record turnout,” Galvin said.

There were about 3.7 million votes cast in 2020, the secretary said, and he expects “we will exceed that” by the time the polls close at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

Galvin offered a word of caution to voters who are still holding their mail ballots not to return them by the U.S. Mail unless absolutely necessary.

Ballots postmarked by November 5 can be accepted by election officials, but only if they are received by November 8. According to Galvin, the U.S. postal service could not guarantee that ballots would make it to their destination inside of seven days. Ballots cannot be returned to a polling place.

“If at all possible return them to a drop box or to your city or town election offices,” he said.

Galvin said that he expects that voting will go on without much fuss in Massachusetts, though he acknowledged that officials in other states have faced concerns of violence and disruption. That’s less of a concern in the Bay State, Galvin said, because elections workers are well trained to administer the process, and each polling place is staffed with an on-duty police officer.