With the sights and sounds of Wednesday’s Special Town Meeting still dancing in their heads, civic-minded Harvard voters, among the most engaged in the state, will head to the Bromfield School once again on Tuesday, Nov. 4, to choose a town selectman, fill 12 state and congressional offices, and decide four ballot questions.
The voting will be done on two ballots, one for Harvard’s Special Town Election and one for the state election, samples of which are posted inside Town Hall. Voters will be asked to register separately for each ballot on entering and exiting the polling area in the Bromfield cafeteria, which opens at 7 a.m. and closes 13 hours later at 8 p.m.
For town voters, the election with the most immediate impact is the one to fill the empty seat on the Board of Selectmen, left vacant by the resignation of Marie Sobalvarro last spring. With an even number of members, the board has worked hard to achieve consensus, but has appeared stymied at times by the threat of a split vote on motions affecting Town Hall and other town business.
The two candidates are Ken Swanton of Fairbank Street and Deb Thomson of Poor Farm Road. Voters can find information about the candidates and their positions at the special campaign sites each has created. To learn more about Deb Thomson, go to her Facebook page, “Deb Thomson for BoS,” at www.facebook.com/thomsonforharvard. For Ken Swanton, see his website and video at www.selectswanton.com. Also, voters may read edited transcripts of Press interviews with Swanton and Thomson.
In addition to filling the selectman seat, voters will elect a new governor and lieutenant governor, a new attorney general, a U.S. senator, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and seven other state representatives and officials whose names will appear on the two-sided state ballot. Candidates for three state offices are unopposed: State Senator James Eldridge, State Representative Jennifer Benson, and Middle District (Worcester) District Attorney James Early.
Four questions
Voters will also decide four ballot issues, including proposals to:
- Adjust the state’s current 24 cent-per-gallon gas tax each year by the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index;
- Expand the beverage container deposit law to include bottled water and other “non-alcoholic, non-carbonated drinks;”
- Repeal the law permitting gambling and casinos in Massachusetts;
- Entitle employees in Massachusetts to earn and use sick time, “according to certain conditions.”
Information about each question, including pros and cons, can be found in the Massachusetts Information for Voters booklet that was mailed to every household this fall. An online version can be found here: http://bit.ly/1tCY942. Boston.com has prepared a helpful online summary at http://bit.ly/1tArQP2.
Judging by the relatively high number of absentee ballots she has received so far, Town Clerk Janet Vellante believes turnout will be high; as of Tuesday, Oct. 28, 144 absentee state ballots had been submitted.
In the 2012 presidential election, turnout reached 89 percent, with 3,642 votes cast out of 4,072 registered voters. In the 2010 off-year election, turnout was 76 percent, with 2,876 votes cast out of 3,853 registered voters. Harvard is a town dominated by independent voters, like the rest of the state. Among registered voters, 2,442 have declared themselves independent, 1,006 are registered as Democrats, and 514 as Republicans.
