A Massachusetts town clerk has resigned after officials in the 4th Congressional District community lost track of thousands of ballots in the primary earlier this month.
Franklin Town Clerk Teresa Burr on Friday stepped down to “re-establish confidence with the voters of this community in their elections,” she wrote in her resignation letter.
Two days after the Sept. 1 primary, thousands of uncounted ballots surfaced in Franklin as the 4th Congressional District remained too close to call. The newly discovered 3,000 uncounted ballots were mail-in votes that appeared to have never made it to polling locations on Election Day.
Poll workers ended up counting the 3,000 ballots late into the night two days after the primary. Jake Auchincloss eventually won the Democratic primary.
In Burr’s resignation letter, she noted that this election season has been “the most challenging election cycle in my career.”
“I want to assure every resident that my performance over the past few months for this election was not intentional, nor have I ever conspired to deprive any voter of their ability to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted as part of an election,” Burr wrote.
“Any oversights that I made during this election cycle are due to the many challenges this election has brought upon myself,” she added. “I believe it is in the best interest of the community to have a new leadership team in place.”
Officials in three 4th Congressional District communities — Franklin, Newton and Wellesley — two days after the primary restarted counting primary ballots following Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin filing a court order to authorize local poll workers to continue counting ballots that were received on time and had not been tallied by the end of primary night.
The chair of the Franklin Town Council thanked Burr for her “many successful years of dedicated service to the town.”
“I want to assure the voters of Franklin that our current Town Clerk office staff, in conjunction with assistance from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s team, will conduct a flawless election in November and beyond,” Franklin Town Council Chair Thomas Mercer wrote.
“While the events of the past two weeks have certainly caused some concern in town, I am confident in the ability of the Town Clerk office staff, our election workers, and collective town staff to support them as they work tirelessly toward November,” he added.
Galvin is advising every voter who has not already submitted a Vote by Mail application to keep an eye on their mailbox in the coming days.
“We are not mailing applications to voters who have already applied, so there is no need to worry if you do not receive one in the mail this time,” Galvin said in a statement.
Expanded in-person voting will also be available this year, from Oct. 17 to 30. Four days of weekend voting will be held in every community during that period. Those planning to vote in person do not need to submit their Vote by Mail applications.
