After mailer error, early voters allowed to change their ballots

In an unprecedented move, town election officials are giving early voters the chance to cast a new ballot in this month’s special election after a voter flagged an error in a townwide voter information mailer.

The town fixed the problem and is now shelling out close to $4,000 to send a corrected mailer to all residents just days before final balloting. 

Town Manager Kerry Lafleur didn’t address the issue at Monday’s Select Board meeting. Approached afterward, she acknowledged that the offer to change votes feels novel.

“I’ve been with the town for nine years,” she said. “I don’t remember anything like that in my time.” 

Town Clerk Kaari Mai Tari confirmed in an email to The Acton Bridge: “This scenario has not come up in Acton before.” 

The information packet sent August 1 overstated the estimated tax impact of Acton’s share of a bathroom building at Acton-Carlisle High School. Officials issued a correction last Friday. On Monday, they said Concordians who have already voted via mail-in balloting or in-person absentee voting and want to change their vote based on new information can send a written request to have their vote spoiled and a new ballot mailed. 

Tari said 698 ballots had been cast as of early Tuesday afternoon. It will cost $3,730 to print and mail a new round of information packets. 

Tax impacts
Nearly $29 million in spending is on the ballot via a $27.5 million five-year road maintenance spending package and a $1.42 million check to bring CCHS’ Memorial Field stadium into compliance with the state plumbing code and the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

Both projects would require borrowing. One model suggests the road project will hike taxes over 15 years with a peak annual impact of $520.14 for the average homeowner.

The amenities project could cost $27.10 per year for 10 years, with an average total tab of $271. The original mailing to voters got this wrong, reading, “The tax implication of a ‘YES’ vote is estimated to be $271/year/household for ten years.” 

20250819_Sample_Ballot

‘Extremely disappointed’
Acton has been sending information packets ahead of ballot question votes since residents endorsed the measure at Town Meeting in 2022. This year’s mailer included descriptions of each question, as well as arguments for and against passage. 

Tari explained the process in a statement, saying town counsel solicited “pro” arguments from committees supporting each question and “con” arguments from people who spoke against the measures at Town Meeting in June. 

Among other complaints, the argument against bathrooms said taxpayers are being “bullied” to vote yes.

CCHS School Committee Chair Tracey Marano, in a previous email to The Bridge, panned the passage as “inflammatory and insensitive.”

Reached again after the tax impact fumble, she said she’s not sure who compiled the erroneous information and said, “I would like to understand how this could have happened.”

Tari said town counsel “developed” the mailer. 

Possible changes

Public Works Commission Chair Andrea Solomon is hoping for a “yes” vote on the roads project. She said the bathroom con argument struck a sharper tone than the roads opposition. 

“Whenever you go to name calling or accusatory language like that, it’s not a salient point,” she said in an interview. 

Select Board Chair Mark Howell said state law dictates the process for pro and con statements and the process “doesn’t work well for local issues like our debt exclusion questions.” 

“I think we can do better,” he told The Bridge in an email. “We’ll see what’s available to us before the next election.” 

Howell said it was “important to correct the factual error” regarding the amenities impact and voters “should be offered the opportunity to consider that information before registering their vote.” 

Select Board member Mary Hartman, in a Tuesday morning phone call with The Bridge, said no one on the board had reviewed the mailer and that the document should have gone out on town letterhead, rather than the Select Board’s.

(Howell confirmed the board didn’t review the info packet, but said “the use of the letterhead is routine for municipal election mailers.”)

Hartman said hadn’t heard about the plan to send a new mailing or the offer to re-cast votes but considered it “the right thing to do” under the circumstances.

Years ago, Hartman said she cast a ballot via mail-in voting but learned new information about a candidate after the fact. She said she went to the polls on election day and workers allowed her to change her vote.

“I was surprised that they were accommodating,” she said. 

Voters will finish settling the road and amenities building ballot questions on Tuesday, August 19. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

People who have already voted should send any requests to change their vote by email to [email protected] or by mail to the Town Clerk’s Office at 22 Monument Square, Acton, MA, 01742. People can also deliver requests to the clerk’s office or the drop box outside the Town House. 

Tuesday, 4:54 p.m.: This story has been updated.

The Acton Bridge will be on hiatus from print publication on August 15 and 22 but will publish unofficial election results online at concordbridge.org.