Turnout expected to top 50 percent
About 585,000 in Mass. cast ballots early
Out of the more than 4.5 million registered voters in Massachusetts, about 2.4 million will hit the polls by the end of the day — inspired by the national implications of the midterms, Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin predicted.
“It is the national awareness of this election that affects it, even here in Massachusetts where the races have been different in the way that they’ve been approached by various campaigns,” Galvin said of how he arrived at his estimation.
The state’s top election official announced his turnout forecast and a security update at a press conference yesterday.
Out of the 4,574,967 voters registered in Massachusetts, about 585,000 people voted early, Galvin said ahead of today’s election. Of the voters who cast early ballots, 55 percent were unenrolled, 36 percent were Democrats, and 9 percent were Republicans. In addition to the early ballots, which have already been cast, Galvin said the number of voters who applied for absentee ballots was approaching 130,000 yesterday.
“We’re very encouraged,” Galvin said. “We think that the number of inquiries to the ‘Where do I Vote’ site, again, confirmed our suspicions that many people are going to now suddenly decide to vote. They are very aware of the election, but they hadn’t made final plans.”
Polls will be open across Massachusetts from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. today.
Galvin said his office detected some “minor” but unsuccessful efforts to access the elections system, but said they were “not unusual.” He noted that the registration system is not connected to the internet.
“Obviously we monitor our system constantly,” Galvin said. “We detected minor efforts. When I say minor, they don’t appear professional or overseas or anything coordinated, but periodically we have efforts we pick up. This is not unusual. It has happened. Efforts are ongoing always.”