Massachusetts secretary of state: It’s too late to mail your ballots – vote in person for Boston mayor

Secretary of State William Galvin is predicting that more than 100,000 people will cast ballots in the Boston mayoral prelim on Tuesday — but if you want to be one of them, don’t try mailing your ballot at this point, the state’s top elections pol repeatedly stressed.

“If you’re looking at the ballot, don’t mail it,” Galvin said at a Monday press conference on the eve of the election. That’s because there’s not a grace period for ballots to come in after election day — either it’s there by 8 p.m. when polls close or your vote doesn’t count.

So the move now, for those among the 40,000 or so people who requested mail-in ballots and have not sent them in, is either to fill it out and submit it in person to a drop box or to the elections office in City Hall, or to simply ignore it and go vote in person. It’s fine to request a ballot by mail and then skip it and vote as normal in person; the only thing you can’t do is send in a mail ballot and then also try to cast one in person.

All of this also applies to the other 14 cities and towns in the state that have elections.

Boston’s is the most high-profile by far, as the city prepares to elect a new mayor after the departure of two-term incumbent Martin Walsh, now the U.S. Labor Secretary.

Tuesday’s preliminary election will narrow the field down to the top two vote-getters — which will almost certainly be two women, and definitely will be two people of color, both historic firsts. Acting Mayor Kim Janey, former economic development director John Barros and City Councilors Andrea Campbell, Annissa Essaibi-George and Michelle Wu comprise the major candidates in the field.

The city’s elections department always abstains from trying to predict turnout, but it did say that residents requested 46,629 mail-in ballots and 20,067 had been mailed back as of Sunday. The city said 5,624 Bostonians voted early in person.

Following tweaks to the Boston election law for this unexpected cycle, the next mayor will be sworn in when the results of the Nov. 2 election are certified, possibly in November, rather than in January, as per usual.

Galvin predicted that somewhere between 100,000 people and 110,000 people will vote by the time all is said and done — which he characterized as a “decent” turnout, less than the record-breaking 2013 but more than 2017.