Swampscott has a local election turnout problem.

A 2013 study of 240 mayoral elections found that, on average, just over a quarter of eligible voters turn out for local elections. That trend held in 2018, when only 15 to 27% of eligible voters cast ballots.

In Swampscott, turnout has hovered around 16.98% since 2016.

“People don’t realize how important local elections are,” said Lauren Shrestha, who served on the Town Election Review Committee. “Local elections are what helps decide things in your everyday life, and they often are the most impactful to your everyday life.”

The National Civic League notes that local election turnout is often less representative of a community’s income, age, and ethnicity, with turnout among affluent voters 30 to 55% higher than among low-income voters.

“The overall impact is that local elected officials and policy are disproportionately influenced by older affluent white voters, undermining our representative democracy and the effectiveness of local governments,” National Civic League writes. “Recent research found that less representative elections contribute to poorer outcomes for minorities, including uneven prioritization of public spending.”

In Swampscott, voters under 30 have the lowest turnout, while those over 65 vote most often.

The Town Election Review Committee has suggested that residents in Swampscott may have skipped voting in the past due to a lack of information about candidates and issues. Chair Marta Sirota and Vice Chair Shayne Spaulding presented data from a townwide survey to the Select Board that showed 38.2% of registered voters in Swampscott said they didn’t vote because they did not have enough information about the candidates or the issues. An additional 26.4% said they were too busy, while 15.5% even admitted to not knowing there was an election. 

Less common reasons not to vote were not being interested in politics (8.2%), not feeling like their vote made a difference, difficulty in accessing child care (4.5%) and that it was difficult to find out when the election was. 

Sirota and Spaulding did not respond for comment. 

“People don’t realize that so much that goes on in the town happens by voting,” Shrestha said. “They’re exercising their power on how things will be run in the town. Exercising your right to vote in general is so important because that’s your way to participate in government and let your voice be heard.”

Shrestha said she hopes the addition of a local paper will boost turnout on April 28.

“That was one of the biggest issues that people said, that they didn’t have a way of getting news or information. There were a lot of people who didn’t know who was running or much information of what’s going on,” Shrestha said. “When you know what’s going on, you feel more invested. When you’re more invested in your community, I feel that you’re more likely to want to participate in the voting process in town.”

Shrestha said that the previous local election, which took place three weeks prior to the Swampscott Tides’ first publishing date, information was mostly spread by word of mouth. Information in the Lynn Daily Item or The Patch “wasn’t Swampscott specific,” she said. 

“If they couldn’t read past the paywall, they wouldn’t read further,” Shrestha said. “People would hear things purely from word of mouth. A lot of people didn’t know what was going on around town.”

In Swampscott’s April town election last year, just over 16% of registered voters cast ballots. In 2024, the number was higher, at 23.85%, the highest percentage of registered voters electing local officials since 2019, according to election data. 

Within the specific neighborhoods, Precinct 4 has consistently outperformed other areas in the percentage of registered voters going to the polls, at 22.23% average annual turnout since 2016. Precinct 1 has seen the lowest average voter turnout since 2016 at 11.99% on average annually, according to available data. The other precincts, however, tend closer to Precinct 1 than 4 (2 at 14.65%, 3 at 15.86%, 5 at 16.53% and 6 at 18.51%).

At Tuesday’s debate, hosted by the Swampscott Tides, the four candidates for Select Board were asked about encouraging more people to pay attention and get involved with local civic duties.

Wayne Spritz discussed a recent visit to condominiums in Precinct 2, where he said outreach can help encourage residents to get involved.

“I found by outreaching and talking to them, they felt more encouraged to get involved,” Spritz said. “I believe that engagement is important, and whether or not that’s the responsibility of all elected leaders to reach out to those…that have less of a voice, whether by choice or not by choice, and to get more people involved.”

Spritz also mentioned he’d like to look at the alert system to “make sure folks have that messaging and there’s multiple ways to get there.” In his response, Ted Dooley agreed, suggesting that when the Planning Board notifies residents of a project proposal in their neighborhood “we usually have a lot of people show up.”

“They just need someone to reach out to them and let them know,” Dooley said. “We need to find more opportunities to do that…People want to be involved. They just don’t know how.”

Dooley also noted how when he was in high school, the students had a “mock Town Meeting.”

“Living in New England my whole life, it’s really awesome and it’s a great thing where everyone can show up and be the Swampscott congressman for a night or two or three and have their vote,” Dooley said. “I think it’s really working with the high schoolers to get great civic involvement in our local government starting when the kids are in high school. That’s what matters. We want young people to be involved. We want them to have their voices heard. We want them to develop these habits when they’re about to take their first votes and take it on for the rest of their lives.”

Charlie Patsios spoke of the people he’s already reached out to that are now involved in board, such as Ken Shutzer and Glenn Kessler on the Swampscott Housing Authority.

“That’s what makes Swampscott special. That’s what continues to drive us forward,” Patsios said. “Collectively we can do better.”

Wayne Godfrey said he loves walking the town fully in an afternoon and “running into people…knocking doors, asking questions and having questions asked of me.”

“An even more fun thing, I’ve been dying to see this for 20 years, maybe a really beautiful banner on Humphrey Street that just simply asks people to vote on the day of voting, instead of the emergency alert sign,” Godfrey said. “I think there are a variety of things we can do. It comes down to being engaged and encouraging folks to become engaged.”

Swampscott’s local election will be held Tuesday, April 28. Residents will elect candidates to a variety of positions, from the Select Board and School Committee to Town Moderator and Town Meeting Members.

“Voting is so important,” Shrestha said. 

Updated April 15, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. with additional election data