Of all 350 towns in Massachusetts, Harvard took the top spot for voter participation in last month’s presidential election. State figures show 90.98% of Harvard’s 4,569 registered voters cast ballots either by mail or in person, well above both the national and statewide averages and the highest turnout in decades.
“I was so surprised and happy to see that Harvard had the highest turnout in the state,” Town Clerk Marlene Kenney wrote in an email to the Press.
It was a tight race for that top spot, and Harvard won just by a nose. Two towns in western Massachusetts also broke the 90% barrier—Westhampton with 90.83% and Mount Washington with 90.78%. However, both those towns have far fewer registered voters than Harvard. Westhampton has 1,320 and Mount Washington only 141. Harvard’s turnout percentage last exceeded 90% in 1992 when it reached 90.7%.
Many Massachusetts towns saw turnout rates above 75%, and no town fell below 50%.
Nationwide, the 2020 presidential election set records for voter turnout. In sheer numbers, both the winner and the loser received more votes than any previous candidate for the presidency. About 66.7% of those eligible to vote turned out to take part in the election, according to the nonprofit United States Election Project. It was the first time voter turnout topped 65% since 1896, when the winner was William McKinley, the last president to have served in the Civil War.
State-by-state turnout ranged from a high of 79.9% of all eligible voters (not just those who had registered to vote) in Minnesota to a low of 55% in Oklahoma. Massachusetts ranked 13th nationally, with 72.1% of eligible voters casting ballots. Secretary of State William Galvin cited a higher turnout rate of 76% for the state when election results were certified Nov. 18, but that percentage was based on registered voters rather than all eligible voters.
Most towns in Massachusetts had at least a few rejected ballots, and Harvard was no exception. Town Clerk Kenney said 22 ballots were rejected for a range of reasons. Two online ballot applications had signatures that did not match the signatures on the applicants’ voter cards, and seven ballots that the clerk’s office mailed out were returned as undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service. In all those cases, the town clerk tried to reach the voters but got no response. Two ballots arrived after the deadline. Five lacked signatures on the inner security envelope. And finally, six people voted in person after mailing in their ballots, so the mailed-in votes were rejected.
