"The Franklin Area Voting Guide is intended to be a non-partisan resource created by private individuals to allow the people of Franklin, Massachusetts, and surrounding communities to cast an educated vote on issues that impact our community.
The Franklin Voter Guide for 2022 is available Information contained in this guide is provided by candidates and taken verbatim from their survey responses, or sourced from candidate websites/social media accounts, public statements, town halls, and past achievements."
Providing accurate and timely information about what matters in Franklin, MA since 2007. * Working in collaboration with Franklin TV and Radio (wfpr.fm) since October 2019 *
Sunday, October 30, 2022
The Franklin Voter Guide for 2022 is available
Thursday, November 18, 2021
Did you vote Nov 2? Please respond to this quick survey on what you thought of the candidate information available
To help prepare for the next local or biennial election, let's capture what you think about the information available for this one while it is still 'fresh' at hand. The original sources of information covered via this survey are the Franklin Voters Guide, Milford Daily News/Wicked Local, Frank Falvey's interviews for Franklin TV, the series by Franklin Matters, and the two candidate nights. "
Survey closes this weekend. We have more than 80 responses but there were more than 5,000 voters so there is an opportunity!
There are only four questions and the survey should take less than a couple of minutes to respond to. Thanks you!
Did you vote Nov 2? Please respond to this quick survey on what you thought of the candidate information available |
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
2021 Franklin Biennial Election Information Survey
To help prepare for the next local or biennial election, let's capture what you think about the information available for this one while it is still 'fresh' at hand. The original sources of information covered via this survey are the following:
- Franklin Voters Guide
- Milford Daily News/Wicked Local
- Frank Falvey's interviews for Franklin TV
- the candidate question series by Franklin Matters
- the two candidate nights (11/14/21 & 11/21/21)
2021 Franklin Biennial Election Information Survey |
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Vote today for Board of Assessors, Board of Health, Planning Board, School Committee, Town Clerk and Town Council candidates
It is anticipated that about an hour after the polls close the results should be ready. Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm or 102.9) will be prepared to broadcast from the gym when they are ready.
Saturday, October 2, 2021
The Franklin Voters Guide is available
"The Franklin Area Voting Guide is intended to be a non-partisan resource created by private individuals to allow the people of Franklin, Massachusetts, and surrounding communities to cast an educated vote on issues that impact our community.
Information contained in this guide is provided by candidates and taken verbatim from their survey responses, or sourced from candidate websites/social media accounts, public statements, town halls, and past achievements."
It is a collaborative effort:
- As the Franklin Matters interviews (email and audio) are completed, they are being shared there.
- Frank Falvey, is recording interviews with candidates. Those audio files will be part of the Voter Guide repository.
- There are some candidates completed and there are some in the edit/publishing mix
- There are candidates with interviews scheduled for next week
- There are candidates working to confirm the scheduled for their interviews
- Read up on what the candidates have shared
- If you find a candidate, who doesn't have info, prompt them to reach out to get their info into the mix
- If you find a candidate you want to follow up with on a topic or two, the info to contact them is available with what they have published. Go for it. Don't be bashful
The Franklin Voters Guide is available |
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Boston Globe: “The electoral system was the cause of the inequity”
"In Everett today, white, non-Hispanic residents make up less than 44 percent of the population, but they dominate city government. Seventy-five percent of the elected councilors and school committee members are white.
That’s no accident, critics say; it’s a natural outgrowth of the city’s electoral system.
Everett is one of several cities in Massachusetts where all local officials are elected at-large, and none by individual wards or districts. For years, civil rights specialists have called that a recipe for exclusion. White residents, even as a minority, often vote as a bloc and drown out the voices of Black and brown voters. Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit legal organization, recently put Everett councilors on notice that they’re vulnerable to a challenge under the Voting Rights Act.
“There’s no shot against anybody because they’re a white man or a white woman. We are violating the federal Voting Rights Act,” Everett City Councilor Gerly Adrien, the first Black woman to serve on the council, warned her colleagues at a December council meeting."
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
CommonWealth Magazine: T cuts likely to remain; voter turnout numbers highlight wealth, racial disparities
From CommonWealth Magazine we share two articles of interest for Franklin:
"Most T cuts will stand even with new fed money"
"THE MBTA will receive at least $250 million in federal funding under the latest COVID-19 stimulus package, but agency officials plan to move forward with most of their planned service cuts and direct most of the new money toward the capital budget.
MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said Monday that the T expects to get somewhere roughly between $250 million and $300 million in additional support, up to $17 million of which will go toward bumping service back up on high-ridership bus routes and maintaining evening commuter rail service.
Despite calls from activists and lawmakers to change course with the federal aid — plus a $52 million upgrade in the T’s state sales tax revenue outlook — the agency plans otherwise to “proceed with a majority of service changes” that the Fiscal and Management Control Board approved in December, Poftak said."
"IN THE WEALTHY towns of Dover, Sudbury, and Carlisle, more than 90 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the November election.
In the poorer cities of Springfield, Lawrence, and New Bedford, 55 percent of voters or fewer turned out.
While the presidential election drew record turnout in Massachusetts, voter turnout statistics highlight yet another measure of a tale of two commonwealths, according to a report released Monday by MassVOTE, a nonprofit that seeks to increase voter participation.
Communities that were educated, white, and wealthy saw the largest voter turnout. Communities that were poor, minority, and less educated saw the lowest number of voters. Initiatives like no-excuse voting by mail that were meant to make it easier to vote did not help those disparities, and may have even exacerbated them, since state statistics show that voters in wealthier communities were more likely to take advantage of mail-in voting. "
MassVOTE is a Non-Partisan Voting Rights & Issue Advocacy Organization |
Monday, December 28, 2020
CommonWealth Magazine: steps to boost voting rights; let MA home bakers do their thing
"SINCE THE SHOT heard around the world at the battle of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts has been at the forefront of modern democracy. The Massachusetts Constitution – which was drafted by John Adams – formed the model for the United States Constitution and remains the oldest continuously-operating constitution in the world. Despite this history of democratic leadership, in recent years Massachusetts has fallen behind other states in ensuring that all eligible voters can register, vote, and have their votes count. The upcoming legislative session is an opportunity to change that and build on the work done in 2020 to open up voting to more people during the pandemic.
It was encouraging that Massachusetts leaders, like those in many other states, took important steps this year to expand early voting and to send vote-by-mail applications to every registered voter."
"RETIRED SALON OWNER and daycare provider Marcia Donnelly did not want to fight City Hall. She just wanted to sell home-baked sourdough bread from her kitchen in Southbridge.Homemade food businesses are common and easy to start in 48 states, and have become increasingly popular during COVID-19. Worried about global supply chains and general uncertainty, the pandemic has boosted demand for fresh, locally sourced products. Unfortunately, Massachusetts has resisted the trend, along with New Jersey. “It was a battle from the get-go to set up my business,” Donnelly says."
Monday, December 7, 2020
In the News: Cobi Frongillo wins Franklin Town Council seat
Cobi Frongillo, 23, has been elected to fill the open Franklin Town Council seat by a landslide after Saturday’s Special Election.The youngest of the four candidates running received 2,500 votes on Saturday – over half of the overall votes, according to unofficial election results.Despite a snowstorm that blanketed the region from morning to night, 4,267 residents cast their votes at Franklin High School to choose who should fill the vacant Town Council seat left by Eamon McCarthy Earls in September.Greg Chiklis received the second-highest amount of votes with 802 votes, followed by Alan Earls, father of Eamon McCarthy Earls, with 723 votes and KP Sompally with 229 votes.
voter turnout for Franklin elections 2003-2020 |
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Final results of the Nov 3, 2020 election for Franklin voters
...
Final results of the Nov 3, 2020 election for Franklin voters |
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
In the News: "Secretary Galvin expects historical turnout to exceed 2016"
From the Milford Daily News, articles of interest for Franklin:
"Voter turnout for the Nov. 3 election is projected to be double the record-setting number of ballots cast in the Sept. 1 state primaries, and even exceed the historical 75% voter turnout in the 2016 election.
Secretary of State William F. Galvin said more will be known about the expected high turnout in the next week as early voting began Saturday and will continue through Oct. 30.
“I’m hopeful. It seems the level of interest is there,” Galvin said in a telephone interview last week. “We had 3.3 million votes in 2016. It seems we will exceed that. We’ve seen a continuing rising number of people registering to vote.”
The historical voter turnout — expected as well in some other parts of the country and driven by the hotly contested presidential race — is also the result of a massive expansion of mail-in voting due to concerns about crowded polling places during the coronavirus pandemic."
The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 24. Visit the Town Clerk page for office hours to register in person https://www.franklinma.gov/town-clerk or register online https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleidx.htm
the early voting schedule for Franklin |
Monday, October 5, 2020
Franklin Community Voting Guide - November 2020
The Franklin Community Voting Guide for November 2020 is ready for your use to prepare to vote.
Download your copy here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fIIde4DfyieqnK2hTsZDDfMLmoFcqzoO/view?usp=sharing
Franklin Community Voting Guide - November 2020 |
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Election recap: Statewide in MA 47 percent of voters voted by mail
"Faced with a historic number of voters, the Sept. 1 Massachusetts primary avoided the weeks-long delays that beset some New York elections. Officials said there is no apparent rash of potential fraud, as officials in Georgia are investigating. “Very positive” is how the state’s top elections officer described the experience.It was also, in effect, a test run.With less than eight weeks until the Nov. 3 general election, the scramble to distribute millions of vote-by-mail applications is beginning anew, and local clerks — some of whom struggled with the deluge of primary ballots — are girding for a turnout that could be double, if not more, than the record-setting 1.7 million ballots cast in the primary.That expected flood is partially the result of the newly expanded option to vote by mail, a route nearly 813,000, or roughly 47 percent of voters, took for the Sept. 1 primary, according to data provided by state officials. And about 1.4 million people have already requested mail-in ballots for the general election, and Secretary of State William F. Galvin’s office expects that number to grow as additional mailings asking if voters want a ballot begin to go out."
Election recap: Statewide in MA 47 percent of voters voted by mail |
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Franklin, MA: Primary Results - Sep 1, 2020
Party | Voters |
Democrat | 7156 |
Green | 16 |
Libertarian | 43 |
Republican | 1874 |
Total | 9089 |
Franklin, MA: Primary Results - Sep 1, 2020 |
Saturday, September 5, 2020
Commonwealth Magazine: "Voting reforms reinvigorated democracy"
From CommonWealth Magazine we share two articles of interest for Franklin:
"When the Legislature passed an unprecedented expansion of mail-in voting, they did it for this year only, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that makes crowding into polling places unsafe.
But now, amid record-breaking turnout in this week’s primary, some are calling for mail-in voting to become a permanent feature of Massachusetts elections.
“Voter turnout in the September 1 primary makes one thing abundantly clear– vote by mail should be here to stay,” said Cheryl Clyburn Crawford, executive director of MassVOTE, a coalition that aims to expand voting access, in a statement.
The last time turnout in a state primary election topped 1 million was in 1990, when 1.5 million people voted. This year, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin says that turnout will be more than 1.5 million, although he still did not have a final number. "
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/the-download/is-mail-in-voting-here-to-stay-2/
"AT THE START of July, the Legislature passed a landmark bill to expand early voting, implement a secure vote-by-mail system, and strengthen safety measures for in-person voting. Tuesday’s primary was the first major test of these important reforms. They worked.More people voted in this year’s state primary than ever before. According to preliminary data, over 1.6 million voters cast ballots, totaling more than a third of all registered voters. In recent state primaries, fewer than 1 million voters have showed up at the polls, with voter participation rates mired in the teens and low twenties. This year, several competitive races for Congress helped increase voter participation, but the high turnout was also a product of Massachusetts’ new election laws. In the face of an ongoing pandemic, Massachusetts did not simply protect voting rights—we reinvigorated our democracy.The Legislature’s voting reforms gave voters several different ways to cast their ballot. For the first time in the history of the Commonwealth, voters had the choice to vote by mail, to vote in person during a week-long early voting window, or to vote in person on the day of the election. The intent was to empower voters to vote in a way that worked best for them, and it is clear that people availed themselves of the opportunity. Over 1 million people requested mail-in ballots, 180,000 people voted during early voting, and hundreds of thousands more went to the polls on election day. While the vast majority of people who requested a mail-in ballot were able to return it successfully, voters still had the ability to vote in person if they encountered difficulties in the vote-by-mail process."
Friday, September 4, 2020
In the News: Franklin vote completes after midnight Thursday (Friday morning)
From the Milford Daily News, articles of interest for Franklin:
"On Thursday afternoon, Debra O’Malley, a spokesperson with Secretary of State William Galvin’s office, said 3,000 full ballots had been misplaced in Franklin and went uncounted on election night. The same thing happened with about 750 ballots in Newton and 100 ballots in Wellesley.
Because ballots must be counted in view of the public, and on election night, tabulating the missing ballots after that day required a Suffolk Superior Court order, which the Secretary’s office says was granted at about 5 p.m. Wednesday night.
Previous reports put the number of uncounted ballots in Franklin at about 600."
https://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20200903/updated-it-has-been-determined-more-than-3000-ballots-have-not-been-counted-in-franklin-after-more-boxes-of-ballots-are-found?rssfeed=true
Why did it take so long? The manual process of counting is not efficient |
Thursday, September 3, 2020
You can help with the Franklin Voter's Guide update for November's Election
The Franklin Voter's Guide is being updated for the November election. This time the group developing the guide is looking to get questions for the candidates sourced from Franklin residents and voters.
Please take a couple of minutes to respond. This is only a two question survey.
What are the most important issues for you in the State Senate and State Representative races?
If you could pass the survey on or circulate to your friends and neighbors, that would be great.
Survey link = https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/T5TGPQH
You can help with the Franklin Voter's Guide update for November's Election |
In the News: 4th District race too close to call; Franklin still counting
From the Milford Daily News, articles of interest for Franklin:
"The identity of the Democratic nominee from the 4th Congressional District hung in limbo, unresolved, throughout the day Wednesday as Newton City Councilor Jake Auchincloss clung to a small, but significant lead, and state officials sought to make sure every vote got counted.
Auchincloss, a Marine veteran and moderate Democrat, led his closest competitor Jesse Mermell, a progressive former adviser to Gov. Deval Patrick, by a little over 1,500 votes with over 96% of the vote tallied.
Competing with five others, the two emerged after Tuesday’s in-person primary voting as the leading contenders to win the Democratic nomination in the district currently represented by U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III. Mermell racked up her votes in the liberal suburbs west of Boston, winning handily in her hometown of Brookline and places like Needham, Wellesely and Dover."
"Election officials in Franklin are still working on Wednesday evening to count the ballots from state primary on Tuesday.Franklin is the only community in the 4th Congressional District that has not announced unofficial results and many are awaiting the results with baited breath because the leaders in the race are separated by 1,506 votes, according an Associated Press tally. Jake Auchincloss appeared to be holding on to the slim lead over his closest competitor Jesse Mermell, a progressive one-time Brookline selectwoman and former head of the Alliance for Business Leadership.The delay is because of the large volume of early and mail-in ballots they received, according to Franklin Town Clerk Teresa Burr. Franklin was among the towns that elected not to do the “central tabulation,” instead electing to handle the early and mail-in ballots on Election Day. Burr said they will be reevaluating that for November.
.....
Galvin’s court petition said there were approximately 751 ballots that had been received via drop box in Newton late on Tuesday and not delivered to the polls to be counted. In Wellesley, there are about 50 overseas ballots and 50 early and mail-in ballots yet to be counted. Another 600 ballots in Franklin had been stored in a vault and were never removed and delivered to precincts on Tuesday for counting."
In the News: 4th District race too close to call; Franklin still counting |
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
“The most important thing to do now is to count all the votes"
From the Milford Daily News, articles of interest for Franklin:
"As Sept 2 dawned, the race for the 4th Congressional District House seat showed no sign of ending.
According to the Associated Press tabulation, fewer than 1,000 votes separated the top two Democrats, former Brookline city councilor Jesse Mermell and Newton City Councilor Jake Auchincloss. Mermell had led for much of the evening, with the gap between the two dwindling as more towns reported.
As of 12:45 a.m., 76 percent of the towns had reported results; outstanding were: Bellingham, Berkley, Dover, Franklin, Lakeville, Milford, North Attleboro, Norton, Raynham, Rehobeth and Seekonk.
In a statement issued shortly shortly before 1 a.m, Mermell’s campaign acknowledged the tight race."
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
In the News: task force formed to tackle car thieves; primary may see record turnout
From the Milford Daily News, articles of interest for Franklin:
"Several area communities have been targeted by two apparent separate groups of car thieves, and now a task force is seeking to catch the suspects.
Hopkinton Police said a task force made up of themselves, Holliston, Sherborn, Franklin, Medway, Millis and Wrentham police departments, as well as the Massachusetts State Police, are searching for the suspects.
“Our detectives have been monitoring this for quite some time,” Hopkinton Chief Joseph Bennett said Monday.
The task force was set up about three weeks ago. The car thefts, as well as car break-ins, have been occurring for about three months, Detective Sgt. Scott van Raalten said."
https://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20200831/two-groups-of-car-thieves-are-targeting-area-from-hopkinton-to-franklin-now-seven-area-police-departments-have-set-up-task-force-to-catch-them?rssfeed=true
“I think we all know this has been an extraordinary year for virtually everything about our lives, and elections are no different,” Galvin, the state’s elections overseer, said at a State House press conference.
“We’re having an election tomorrow, I think under the most unusual circumstances.”
On the eve of a primary election in which ways to participate have been reshaped around the COVID-19 pandemic, Galvin provided a turnout forecast -- he expects 1.2 million to 1.3 million votes, once all are tallied -- and laid out the ground rules for voters."