September 15, 2024

The Lowell City Council met last Tuesday. The end of the agenda showed an executive session “to consider and discuss ongoing negotiations relative to Lupoli Companies LLC, public discussion of which could have a detrimental effect on the city’s position.” This would be the second executive session within a month on this topic, although the last one had a couple of councilors absent so perhaps this was a do over.

A related item was on the same agenda: “Informational presentation by Lupoli Company LLC regarding Hamilton Canal.” This turned out to be a rehash of the same Lupoli presentation to a council subcommittee earlier this year so with nothing new to report, I’ll wait until whatever is being discussed in executive session bursts into the open to discuss this further.

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In response to a motion by Councilor John Descoteaux about the failure to initially count 705 mail-in ballots in the September 3, 2024, state primary election, the city’s new Director of Elections Will Rosenberry appeared before the council to offer an explanation and answer questions.

By way of background, you might recall that at the July 23, 2024, council meeting, Rosenberry’s soon-to-retire predecessor, Greg Pappas, appeared before the council to answer questions about the election office’s ability to administer a potential special election to fill the council seat that John Leahy would soon vacate. Pappas issued a lengthy rant about all the challenges and pit falls of mail-in ballots. At the time, I took it as an effort to provide political cover to councilors who wanted to appoint Corey Belanger to the seat by council vote rather than leave it to the residents in a special election. But Pappas’s outburst had the added effect of sowing doubt about the efficacy and accuracy of mail-in voting. (See my July 28, 2024, newsletter for a report on that council meeting.)

Sure enough, on September 4, 2024, the day after the primary election, the city announced that 705 mail-in ballots that had been properly cast for the September 3, 2024, election had not been counted. Fortunately, the two contested races on the ballot that day would not be affected by the uncounted votes since (1) the uncounted votes were all from outside the 18th Middlesex State Representative district. and (2) the margin of victory in Northern Middlesex Register of Deeds race far exceeded the number of uncounted ballots.

Nevertheless, this was a deeply disturbing incident. In his remarks to councilors, Rosenberry calmly explained what happened, took responsibility for it, and highlighted the new procedures he has implemented to ensure something similar does not happen again.

For those unfamiliar with mail-in voting, here’s how it works. A voter who has requested a mail-in ballot is sent one by the city. It arrives in a large white envelope. Inside that envelope, is a light brown envelope, the ballot, and a sheet of instruction. The voter marks their ballot by filling in the familiar ovals alongside their preferred candidates, inserts the ballot into the brown envelope, seals it, and signs the brown envelope in the place indicated (the brown envelope typically contains a white sticker with the voter’s name, address, and ward/precinct number on it). The voter either puts the brown envelope into the mail (it is already addressed to the election office and has postage prepaid) or drops it at the ballot drop off box at City Hall.   

At the election office, election clerks collect the incoming brown envelopes and enter the names on each of them into the statewide central voter registry, a massive database maintained by Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin’s office. This would change the status of each voter’s record in that database from “pending” to “accepted.” The SOC has a handy “track my ballot” page on its website that allows you to check the status of your ballot based on this kind of input.

For example, when I check the status of my ballot, it reports the 11/5/2024 State Election ballot is “pending” which means they received my application for a mail-in ballot but have not yet sent the ballot to me. My entry for the 9/3/2024 state primary says the ballot was mailed to me on 7/30/2024, it was received back from me on 8/7/2024, and its status was “accepted” which means “submitted to be counted.” I assume that when my brown envelope arrived at the Election Office on August 7, a clerk entered that information into the central voter registry database and my ballot status shifted to “accepted.”

Rosenberry further explained that the election office received 4000 brown envelopes in this manner. At some point, they performed “advance processing” of these ballots. This consisted of verifying that the information from the brown envelope had been accurately entered in the database, then the brown envelopes were opened, and the ballots were removed and separated from the envelopes. This separation is to ensure the confidentiality of each person’s voting choices. The now anonymous, already cast ballots were unfolded, flattened, organized by ward and precinct, and placed in plastic containers which were then secured with tamper-evident seals. These containers were then placed in the Election Office’s vault to await counting on election day. Ballots received up until August 27, 2024, were handled in this manner.

The plan for election day was to establish a “central tabulation facility” at City Hall where election office employees would feed the already pre-processed mail-in ballots through an automated counting machine so the votes cast on these ballots would be tabulated and then added to the vote totals calculated at the various polling locations once the polls had closed.

But as that great philosopher Mike Tyson once said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” The “punch on the face” for the election office was a malfunctioning ballot counting machine at one of the polling places. That diverted the attention of key people from the “central tabulation facility” to the remote precinct and, while the wayward machine was eventually fixed, it threw off the timetable at City Hall and the counting of mail-in ballots fell behind schedule.

Out at the polling locations, election workers continued to service in-person voters until 8 pm when the polls closed. Then, as I understand it, election workers print a paper receipt from each voting machine at the polling place, and tape it to the front door of the polling place so that the public can see the results from the vote counting machine. This gives interested parties an early glimpse at the election results at that precinct, but it also provides a verification method that would help disclose any tampering with the vote counting machines that might occur while in transit from the polling place to City Hall. Once the paper receipt is printed and displayed, the paper ballots are sealed in a container and then the container, the voting machine, and all peripheral equipment and records are transported to City Hall by an election worker with a police escort.

During the next hour or so, things get hectic in the basement of Lowell City Hall which is where the Election Office is located. Accountability is critical, so there is a complex ballet of checking in the incoming voting machines and ballots, and then a second paper receipt showing the results is obtained from each machine. These receipts are all tabulated, the separate counts from the mail-in ballots are added to the proper precinct counts, and the greatly anticipated unofficial election results are released to the public.

On the evening of September 3, however, the counting of the mail-in ballots at the “central tabulation facility” was still underway when the ballots and machines from the polling places arrived at City Hall. My sense is that the same people who were counting the mail-in ballots had responsibilities in receiving the materials from the polling places. The plan was for the mail-in counting to be completed long before the polling place material arrived, but the plan had a Mike Tyson episode.

Amid this, the container containing 705 mail-in ballots from one ward that was securely lodged in the vault was overlooked and never counted.  The morning after the election, as Rosenberry was completing the calculations needed for the official results to be submitted to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, he found that the numbers did not add up. A quick investigation revealed the untouched container of ballots. He notified the city solicitor and the Secretary’s office which directed him to hold a public count of those additional ballots on Friday. That was done without incident, and the city’s official numbers were transmitted before the Saturday deadline.

Looking ahead, Rosenberry told councilors that for the upcoming general election, he will activate an “advanced tabulation facility” which will allow the election office to begin counting mail-in ballots on Friday, November 1, 2024. That will continue through the weekend so that all the mail-in ballots that have been received by the city prior to a certain date will be counted before election day arrives on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. This advanced counting is allowed by Massachusetts law and while those ballots will be counted ahead of time, those results will not be known until the polls close at 8pm on election night.

Besides freeing key personnel to react to unexpected events on election day rather than simultaneously counting mail-in ballots, this additional processing time will likely be needed just for the sheer number of votes expected to be cast by mail. Rosenberry explained that the city already has 8000 requests for mail-in ballots and expects to receive more. He expects to receive the actual ballots from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office no later than October 6, 2024, and the city will begin mailing them to voters right after that.

The last time I voted in person was February 25, 2020, for that year’s presidential primary and even then, I did not vote at the regular polling place but cast my ballot at Lowell City Hall during the “early voting” window. (For the record, I voted for Elizabeth Warren.) Ever since, I have voted by mail. At first, that was mostly because of the Covid pandemic, but I continue to vote by mail because (1) I find it convenient; and (2) I believe vote by mail has huge implications for voters, candidates, and election outcomes, and I’m doing everything I can to learn more about it.

I’ll share more of my thoughts on mail-in ballots and on elections in general in next week’s newsletter, so please check back for that.

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If you’re reading this early on Sunday morning, you still have time to get over to Lowell Cemetery for today’s Mausoleum and Portrait Tour. It begins at the Knapp Avenue entrance to the cemetery (77 Knapp Ave, right behind Shedd Park) and it starts at 10am but since it’s self-guided, you can begin later than that:

A mausoleum is an above ground building that contains one or more burial chambers. Mausoleums became popular in America from the 1890s to the 1920s, especially among wealthier people. Lowell Cemetery has nearly a dozen mausoleums, all with unique architectural and design characteristics. The doors of the mausoleums are always locked, except on the rare occasions when the cemetery allows visitors to look inside. To be clear, once inside the mausoleum, you will see the closed compartment in which the decedent’s casket is placed, not the casket or the decedent’s remains, however, what is visible inside is still fascinating to see.

In the past, my predecessor as tour guide, Catherine Goodwin, did a special mausoleum tour that was limited to 15 guests since the space inside each mausoleum is cramped. To allow for larger crowds to participate, we switched to the self-guided model where a volunteer guide will be at each of the mausoleums; visitors will be handed a map at the cemetery entrance and can then proceed at their own pace in their own order. Although you can start the tour at any time from10am on, the mausoleum doors will be locked at noon so plan your visit accordingly. As a bonus this year, the cemetery will display portraits of many of those buried in the mausoleums alongside their burial places.

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As I’ve mentioned previously, the regular guided tour of Lowell Cemetery this fall will occur on Saturday, October 5, 2024, and on Sunday, October 6, 2024, both beginning at 10am from the Knapp Ave entrance. This will be a traditional guided tour led by me. Even if you’ve been before, please consider returning this year since many of the sites and people I will talk about are new to my tours. The same content will be covered on both days.

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The 36th Annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Fall Festival will happen from October 10 through October 14, 2024. The full schedule of events is here, but there are two I want to single out for your consideration.

On Friday, October 11, 2024, at 11am, there will be a Kerouac-themed tour of St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Chelmsford led by Kerouac-scholar Kurt Phaneuf. I attended this tour last year and found it fascinating. Kurt did a masterful job of connecting real life people from Lowell, some of whom I knew while they were alive, with the corresponding characters in Kerouac’s books. As a cemetery tour provider myself, having a knowledgeable guide lead us around this historic cemetery which was founded in 1894 was a bonus. St. Joseph’s Cemetery is located at 96 Riverneck Road in Chelmsford. Attendees can meet there or can take a dedicated bus that departs Lowell National Historical Park HQ at 246 Market Street at 11am with a suggested donation of $10.

On Saturday, October 12, 2024, at 11am at the Pollard Memorial Library Community Room, another Kerouac expert, Paul Marion, will discuss his new book Portraits Along the Way which is a collection of biographical sketches written by Paul from 1976 to the present. Many local and national figures are included in the collection, including many with strong Kerouac connections. The book will soon be available from Loom Press. Look for my review in the coming days on richardhowe.com.

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Speaking of richardhowe.com, there are a couple of posts from this past week that might be of interest:

The first is a reprint of a Steve O’Connor essay of his experience and observations on September 11, 2001.

The second recounts a recent trip to the Canine Emergency Room with our labradoodle. Our dog is fine, but the circumstances of the visit may be of interest, especially if you are a dog owner.