Janet Vellante keeps things orderly at a recent Town Meeting. (File photo)
If there are seldom glitches in Harvard elections, it is no accident. Town Clerk Janet Vellante has been in charge of them for 18 years. Anything related to elections in Harvard goes through her office—from voter registration to certifying and posting election results.
Pinned to Vellante’s desk is guiding advice she received from another town clerk: “It is the things we do before the election that make an election go smoothly.”
Vellante described her first election as “a trial by fire.”
“We were still using paper ballots,” she told the Press. “There was the first Super Town Meeting about Devens. The first time we did an election we had an exact tie for selectman and we had to do a recount.”
The final count produced was a two-vote lead for one candidate.
Now, Vellante’s experience and organization have paid off.
“There’s a lot of prep work , making sure everything is ready, a checklist of things to do, a checklist of supplies I need to bring—all those little things that help the election go easier,” she said.
—Janet Vellante,
Town Clerk
An election really begins with voter registration and maintaining the town’s voter roll. Once registered through the town clerk’s office, a voter will remain on the town voter registration list until he or she notifies the clerk in writing, registers in another town in Massachusetts (the state maintains a central voter registry that flags voters with the same name and birthday), or dies.
Vellante stressed the importance of the town census. Anyone who doesn’t reply to the annual town census is placed on an inactive voter list and must register again.
To encourage young voters, Vellante sends out notices to students the month they turn 18, with an invitation to register to vote and how to do it. She said about half of the 18-year-olds in town are registered, many of them just recently. Vellante has processed about 90 voter registrations since August, perhaps 75 percent of them from new 18-year-olds.
“Kids are getting ready to go off to college,” she said. “It’s a presidential election year.”
Vellante wanted to remind voters that the last day to register to vote for the upcoming national election is Wednesday, Oct. 17, when her office will be open until 8 p.m.
“If someone turns 18 on the day of the election, they can still register to vote, but they have to abide by the deadline of Oct. 17,” she said.
Absentee ballots are a help for anyone who is unable to get to the polls on Election Day. Absentee ballots may be applied for in writing or at the clerk’s office. They may be mailed to the voter’s address or completed in the office. No individual ballots may be carried from Town Hall.
Vellante was generous in her praise for all the people who assist on Election Day—the Bromfield custodial staff that helps with the booths that are stored at the school, food services director Paul Correnty who provides food for the workers, the police who oversee the ballot box, and the many polling volunteers. Vellante asks the Republican and Democratic Town Committees for an equal number of poll workers and then forwards their lists to the Board of Selectmen for approval.
“We see the same people every year. They are incredible. They take it seriously and make my job easier,” she said.
This year, as she did in 2008, Vellante worked with the Bromfield School administration to schedule one of the teachers’ professional development days—no-school days for students—on Election Day to ease traffic and parking.
An AutoMark voting machine is available for handicapped voters, though Vellante said it usually gets used only once at each election—when she tests it. A voter can sit at the AutoMark, adjust the visual display, hear an audio version of the ballot, and vote by touch screen or button.
More commonly, voters who request help will get assistance from two poll workers who accompany the voter to a booth.
Vellante checks each absentee ballot in and out with the poll volunteers and feeds them into the ballot box on Election Day, usually in the middle of the day, when the polls are the quietest.
A long day finally ends
“Once the polls are closed and all the voters are out, we unlock the box. The police officer on duty holds the key to unlock the ballot box [an optical scanner] and there’s a button we can push to print the tally,” Vellante said. If there is a write-in on a ballot, the rest of the ballot is counted and moved to a holding tray for a manual review. “We also have to look at every ballot that is fully counted, because someone could write a name in and not connect the arrow…We have to go with voter intent.” “In the primary election in early September, there were so many names, some people just filled in all the arrows, even without names. You have to reconcile it all at the end of the night.”
Until recently, election results were posted outside Town Hall, next to the door. No longer. Now, after Vellante has stored whatever needs to go in the town vault, she posts first to the Town Clerk’s page on the town website. The next day, the results are also posted on the town’s home page.
Vellante keeps up with changing laws through regular communications from the Secretary of State’s office and information and training from the Massachusetts Town Clerks’ Association.
Vellante reflects on her role in elections.
“You need to be flexible,” she said. “What’s going to happen on any one day changes and shifts, laws change and shift. You just have to go with it. To me, I think it is important that it stay an elected position because I think the person who is running elections needs to be objective and not be influenced by a board or an individual who appoints them.”
