Town of Southwick Town Clerk, Michelle Hill, is preparing for the upcoming election day on 11/8. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick
SOUTHWICK – As Election Day is Nov. 8 in the state of Massachusetts, town clerks throughout the commonwealth are preparing for what is expected to be a high turnout of registered voters.
While Southwick Town Clerk Michelle Hill is preparing for several aspects of the election, Hill already sees the impact of this year’s presidential election.
According to Hill, as of Oct. 6, over 6,900 potential voters in Southwick have already registered for this year. With Oct. 19 being the last day to register to vote, the registration numbers will continue to rise.
It has already skyrocketed well past the 2012 Presidential election as there were 6,408 registered voters in the town of Southwick.
Since this year’s election is highly anticipated, Hill knows what to expect.
“It’s going to bring a lot of emotions,” said Hill.
With those emotions, Hill hopes that every person registered in Southwick who has a strong opinion on the election, will go out and vote.
“You have the right to vote,” said Hill. “You should exercise the right.”
Another main reason that the registration numbers are expected to make a jump is the fact that early voting has been activated for the first time ever in the state of Massachusetts.
Up until this year when early voting didn’t exist in the commonwealth, an absentee ballot was the only way a registered voter could vote prior to the election date.
Early voting begins on Oct. 24 and runs through Nov. 4. Those dates apply to every town and city in Massachusetts, but the hours of town halls vary specifically.
For the Southwick Town Hall, Hill noted that they have posted their early voting hours and have extended past the normal hours that the town hall is usually open.
Below are the hours the Southwick Town Hall is open for every day of the early voting period.
Monday October 24- 8:30am – 4:30pm Monday October 31- 8:30am – 4:30pm
Tuesday October 25- 8:00am- 5:00pm Tuesday November 1- 8:00am- 5:00pm
Wednesday October 26-7:30am – 6:00pm Wednesday November 2- 7:30am – 6:00pm
Thursday October 27- 8:00am- 5:00pm Thursday November 3- 8:00am- 5:00pm
Friday October 28- 8:30am – 4:30pm Friday November 4- 8:30am – 4:30pm
Hill has also decided to have the town hall open on Saturday Oct. 29 from 8 a.m. until Noon.
All registered voters that are interested in doing early voting, need to request an early voting ballot from the town hall. There is also a reminder that if you do indeed engage in early voting, you will not be able to cast another vote on Nov. 8.
Allowing voters in Southwick to have a long window of days to vote prior the election, has eliminated ways registered voters have an excuse to not vote.
“It’s a no excuse policy,” said Hill. “Please take full advantage of it.”
For absentee voting, Hill says she just had those mailed out and people interested for absentee ballot should first check their status to make sure they are registered to vote.
While Hill has had to focus a lot on the emergence of early voting, she also has a number of UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) voters who are registered in Southwick.
UOCAVA voters consists of people who are in the military overseas, or just people that live overseas but are still registered voters in the town of Southwick.
These individuals are required to email the town hall a request to be a UOCAVA voter. Although it is a very small number of the registered voters in town, there are nine people that are UOCAVA voters. Hill said one has already requested to be active for this year’s election and she expects more of those nine voters to reach out to her by Oct. 19.
