More Than 16K Newton Voters Have Already Returned Ballots

BROOKLINE, MA — As of Tuesday morning a little under half of the Newton voters who had requested mail in ballots from the secretary of the commonwealth ahead of the Nov. 2 Election Day have voted and returned their ballots.

Newton and the Secretary of the commonwealth's office had sent out about 35,000 mail in ballots to Newton voters. Of those, about 16,000 have already been returned, according to Town Clerk David Olson. And just under 3,000 Newton voters had voted in person at the library since Saturday.

"People are returning their ballots," said Olson. "Every day they’re putting them in the mail or in the drop box at city hall."

The Olson said his office is getting applications in every day for mail-in ballots and he expects he will get applications until the deadline closes Saturday.

Based on how turnout has gone so far, Olson said he expects overall turnout to be higher than it was for the 2016 election.

"It will probably be higher than 2016 and we had a really good turnout then," he said. "In the Primary in September we would usually see a 25 percent turnout and we had something over 50 percent, this year. We won’t get to 100 percent, but we should see something higher than 80 percent."

The deadline to register to vote is Sat., Oct. 24. You can check your voting status on the Secretary of State's website. The final day to request vote-by mail ballot is Wed. Oct. 28 before 5 p.m. If you've applied and haven't gotten your ballot yet, check with the secretary of the commonwealth's ballot tracker.

Early voting at the library next to city hall runs through Oct. 30.

There are about 62,000 registered voters in Newton, according to Olson.

Read more:

Election 2020: Newton Voter Guide

Jenna Fisher is a news reporter for Patch. Got a tip? She can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna). Have a something you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how .