Friday, April 17 is the last day to register to vote in order to be able to take part in the local election.
Swampscott’s local election will be held on 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.
People are able to register to vote if they are a U.S. citizen, resident of Massachusetts, 18 years or older and not currently incarcerated for a felony conviction. Those who are 16 or 17 years old are able to pre-register to vote.
Registration can be done online at sec.state.ma.us/OVR/ or by mail by filling out and mailing a form found at sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/languages/register-by-mail-forms.htm.
Swampscott has historically had a 16.98% voter turnout.
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.
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%).
Voters will be able to choose Swampscott’s new town moderator, two Select Board members, Board of Health member, three School Committee members, trustee to the Swampscott Public Library, Housing Authority member and 108 Town Meeting members.
The Swampscott Tides hosted a debate on Tuesday among candidates in the only contested race, Select Board.
