Voters are mailing it in

UPDATED Aug. 19

As President Donald Trump’s attempts to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service gain national headlines and Island Post Offices struggle to keep up with summer demand, town clerks tell The Times they have few or no concerns about mail-in ballots for the upcoming Massachusetts primary election, which features a race for U.S. Senate and Dukes County commissioners.

“So far, it’s going very smoothly,” said Gabriella Camilleri, the Aquinnah town clerk. “People are mailing in their applications in plenty of time, and I’ve been mailing out the ballots. I’ve already received quite a few, so we’re looking to have a very good turnout in terms of the early mail-in voting.”

Mail-in ballots are becoming a popular alternative to in-person voting as fears of coronavirus continue to mount. In Aquinnah, Camilleri said, more than 20 percent of registered voters have requested mail-in ballots. According to Tara Whiting-Wells, the town clerk in West Tisbury, their office has already received 450 requests for mail-in ballots, 50 more requests than they received in 2016 for the presidential election. In Edgartown, requests have surpassed 600. “It’s a big increase from previous elections,” said Edgartown town clerk Karen Medeiros.

To vote by mail, voters need to submit an application to their respective towns by August 26. After the application is processed, voters will receive their ballot by mail with instructions on how to properly fill it out and send it back.

“The urgency for mail-in voting for these elections is based mostly on people not wanting to be in a crowd of people, and possibly exposed to COVID-19,” Camilleri said. “It’s also so convenient to be able to vote from home, so I think it’s just making it a lot easier for people to vote and not have to worry.”

While voters have until August 26 to apply for the primary, and Oct. 28 for the general election, John Best of Tisbury’s experience provides a cautionary tale to submit the application sooner.

Best told The Times he sent in a request through the Vineyard Haven Post Office for a mail-in ballot, but the form came back “return to sender.”

He said he recognizes the importance of mail-in voting during the pandemic, and said his problem with requesting a ballot is indicative of a larger issue with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

“I was thinking, ‘This is really kind of outrageous,’” Best said. “I honestly don’t think there is anything that the Vineyard Haven Post Office is doing intentionally with ballots.”

Best said that he anticipated the mail-in ballot request would get sent to the Tisbury town clerk, Hillary Conklin, as there was a free, preprinted label on the envelope.

“The return mail read ‘Return to sender, attempted, unable to forward,” Best said. “It took about two weeks for the ‘return to sender’ to come back.”

Best said he made sure to request a ballot early, because he was concerned about the lengthy turnaround time for mail before the primary election.

But when Best received his return mail saying that the mail could not be delivered, he was surprised to see that a yellow label had been placed over the town clerk’s address that was preprinted on the envelope. There was also a cancellation on the top of the envelope that was marked Providence, R.I.

Best said that, to his knowledge, all mail coming out of the Vineyard Haven Post Office is sent to Providence, to a sectional center facility (SCF). An SCF is a processing and distribution center of the USPS that serves a designated geographical area defined by one or more three-digit ZIP Code prefixes.

“Why any machine or person would slap a return to sender onto the mail when it has the town clerk address on it is beyond me. I called Hillary, and she said she had no idea why the mail wasn’t being delivered — she said it was unusual,” Best said. He said Conklin told him he could bring his ballot request to her office and hand it through the service window.

Best said Conklin told him his mail-in ballot request was one of a few that were problematic.

“I’m not sure why I was singled out. Again, I’m sure it’s nothing intentional, just very strange,” Best said.

Conklin said she has heard of very few issues with the ballot request postcards, and the numbers reflect that mail-in voting for the town of Tisbury has proved effective so far.

“Almost 700 postcards have made it to us. I have heard about two that have gotten returned. With those numbers, I can say I am very pleased with the work the Post Office is doing,” Conklin said.

Conklin said if voters are concerned about the Post Office delivering ballots on time, they can drop them off at the clerk’s office at town hall.

“I think because we have the alternative way, for people just to bring it to us, I have to mail it to them, but they can bring it back to me, I think that will work,” she said. She urged people not to use the drop box, because that’s not secure.

For those who are wary of mailing in their ballots, there are options to drop them off at the town halls or with town clerks. For Chilmark voters, the Chilmark Town Hall has two secure drop boxes directly outside the main door of the town hall at 401 Middle Road. In West Tisbury, there are also two secure drop boxes — one inside the Town Hall lobby at 1059 State Road, and one outside the base of the building’s steps. Similarly, in Edgartown, there are two secure drop boxes, one inside the front lobby of Town Hall at 70 Main St., and one directly outside. In Tisbury, however, voters will need to go into the clerk’s office, located immediately to the right when entering the Tisbury Town Hall at 51 Spring St., and drop off their ballot through the service window. Similarly, in Oak Bluffs, voters should drop off their ballots at the town clerk’s office at Town Hall, located at 56 School St. While there is a secure drop box located outside the building for when town hall is closed, it is not specific to the clerk’s office. Dropping off the ballots inside the building is preferred.

Along with mail-in voting, towns are also offering early, in-person voting. The schedules and locations for each town are below:

CHILMARK: Chilmark Community Center, 520 State Road

Saturday, August 22, 10 am – 12 pm