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A little more than a week before election day, Cambridge voters are already heading to the polls to take part in the city’s most crowded municipal election in recent history, after early, in-person voting opened Saturday.
Cambridge’s in-person early voting, which closes at noon on Oct. 31, allows citizens to vote at the Cambridge Water Department, Main Library, and Valente Library for seven days before polls reopen on Nov. 4. During the general election, residents must vote at the assigned location in their voting precinct.
Voters in the rank-choice election will elect nine candidates to the City Council and six to the School Committee. Constituents will also decide a proposal for minor changes to the Cambridge Charter on their ballots.
Since Cambridge instituted early voting for municipal ballots during the 2021 elections, Cambridge’s constituents have flocked to use the early voting period: In the two municipal elections since the policy shift, the majority of votes were cast before Election Day, representing 61 percent and 58 percent of total votes in 2021 and 2023 respectively.
The consistent use of the early voting period, which includes in-person votes, mail-in ballots, and ballot dropboxes, means the bulk of candidates’ campaigning efforts must preempt the early date.
Since Oct. 6, voters who requested a ballot using a vote-by-mail application have used six mail-in ballot dropboxes or directly mailed ballots using a pre-addressed, postage-paid envelope provided by the city.
Five of these dropboxes — at City Hall, the Morse School, Maria L. Baldwin School, O’Neill Library, and Cambridge Police Headquarters — will close on Nov. 3 at 8 p.m. The dropbox on Mass. Ave — the first of its kind implemented by the City to address social-distancing concerns during the pandemic — will remain open until 8 p.m. on election day.
The deadline to request a ballot is 5 p.m. on Oct. 28, which is also the last day the Cambridge Election Commission recommends mailing a ballot to “ensure timely delivery,” according to its early voting guide.
When Massachusetts’ state legislative body extended early voting to Cambridge’s municipal elections in 2021, proponents hoped the policy would increase access and improve voter participation in low-turnout elections.
But Cambridge’s elections have yet to realize this shift. Voter turnout in municipal elections has consistently remained between 32 and 34 percent since 2017. During the same period, voter turnout for presidential and state elections was more than double that measure — with Cambridge constituents recording 75 percent and 68 percent in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections respectively.
On election day, voting will close on Nov. 4 at 8 p.m.
—Staff writer Dionise Guerra-Carrillo can be reached at dionise.guerracarrillo@thecrimson.com.
