Election Day began well before the polls opened for some in Swampscott.
“(It’s been) busy but exciting, very exciting,” said Town Clerk Katie Dupont. “We’re running around doing a bunch of stuff, a big to-do list but we’ve felt good.”
Swampscott’s local election is on Tuesday, April 28 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Swampscott High School. Residents are electing candidates to a variety of positions, from the Select Board and School Committee to Town Moderator and Town Meeting Members.
“We’ve been strictly business for the last several days,” Dupont said.
For many poll workers, Election Day started around 5 a.m. Equipment and ballots had to be moved to the high school, and clerks and wardens took their oath of office.
For Neal DeChillo, this is his seventh year assisting at a polling site. This year he is an assistant warden to Precinct 4, but in previous years he served as the warden.
“One of my concerns about this is that the average age here (among the people working the poll) is older. I started trying to recruit Kate, who is the warden at Precinct 4 this year,” DeChillo said. “For me it was a matter of trying to bring in some younger blood. The other thing is Kate brought in some of her peers…We’ve got to start getting younger people involved.”
DeChillo said the warden helps explain the importance of voting, outlines the process and “tries to keep voters happy.” The warden also oversees the election clerks, who assist voters with forms.
Linda Garber has been an election clerk for several years after being encouraged by her precinct’s warden.
“I wanted to do something for the community,” Garber said. “It’s a chance to be out and connect.”
It is Michael Paquette’s first local election as an election clerk. He is also on the ballot, running for Town Meeting member in Precinct 4.
“I want to get more involved in the process,” Paquette said. “My big thing is networking. I try to always build relationships and connections.”
The election clerks have that connection and interaction with people as they check in for their precincts and to receive a ballot. Paquette said the process has been “more efficient” this year with the use of computers to check people in, as opposed to previous years where the clerks had “these big printer sheets and you had to go through them.” Computers show clerks where voters should go, rather than sending them back to check in with a door greeter, according to Garber.
Marta Sirota started as an election clerk before she was even able to vote.
“A few years before my first volunteering at the presidential elections, I saw a slip that my parents got in this booklet. At the end of the booklet was ‘you can volunteer’ and I was like, ‘oh that’s kind of cool,’” Sirota said.
Sirota later chaired the Town Election Review Committee and is serving as a clerk for Precinct 2 in Tuesday’s election.
“It’s extremely important for people to realize the importance of local elections,” Sirota said. “As the chair of the election review committee, I do hope that we have more turnout. We have spent a few years already working on that, and I hope it’ll be better.”
In Swampscott’s April town election last year, just over 16% of registered voters, or about 2,050 people, 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%).
“The last election was around 16%. I’m hoping for, if not the same, more than that. We had 399 during the early voting in-person hours,” Dupont said. We did have some in-person absentee voting around that, so we’re hoping for at least the same, if not more turnout.”
