For the first time ever, the
City of Lawrence has destroyed a list of voters
who turned out in a previous mayoral election
(1997) before the next mayoral election takes
place. This list is a compiled record of everyone
who turned out to vote in 1997. It is called the
"purged" list. The "purged"
list of citizens who voted in a specific election
is brought to city hall when the polls close.
They are traditionally kept until the next cycle
of similar elections. For example, election lists
from the 1997 mayoral race would be held until
after the next mayoral election is over. Lists
from the presidential election of 1994 would be
kept until after this year’s election.
Traditionally, this was always done as a courtesy
to citizens who are interested in the election
process, potential candidates for public office,
government agencies or scholars doing research on
the voting trends of a particular year.
That is a fact. I stated it as a fact in the last
edition, and I stand by that fact.
Apparently, printing that fact in Rumbo has
irritated City Clerk James McGravey and the
election department, because they sent us a
nasty, yet irrelevant, letter concerning our
report.
"We had the
occasion to read Tom Duggan’s article
entitled ’Destroying Election
Materials’ in your August 15the edition. It
is disheartening to see that Rumbo would allow
Mr. Duggan to pen such an article without
verifying the information Mr Duggan claims that
we have deliberately destroyed the list. Mr.
Duggan should research the issue before making
himself and your paper look like idiots.
Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 54, section
109 specifically provides that such voting lists
shall be reserved by the registrar of voters for
two years after the expiration of which they
may be destroyed. If Mr. Duggan has
a problem with this division executing MGL he
should take it up with the Secretary of
State’s Office."
The fact that state laws allows local election
departments to throw away a voting list after two
years has nothing to do with the story we printed
in Rumbo. (See Box below) In fact, Rumbo had
thoroughly researched the matter in the election
department through one of our lesser known
reporters before printing the notebook article in
the last edition. The false claims by the
election department that they did not
deliberately destroy the list is disputed in
their own letter where they defend their
destruction of the list as being
"legal".
"The only reason an official at the election
department would write such a letter is because
they are hiding something or he has was told to
do so," said one city hall worker. Why did
they destroy this voting list? The answer given
by the election department was "there
isn’t enough room in city hall." The
election list is no more than three inches thick.
The election department can not defend their
actions because there is no defense for
destroying materials which are so important to
the election process. At a time when the City of
Lawrence has been involved in a law suit with the
Justice Department over unfair election
practices, the destruction of that list makes a
pretty good case for those who are crying foul.
At Large City Councilor, Marcos Devers said he
was surprised to hear that lists were destroyed,
especially with accusations of election bias
still looming against the city. "I think
it’s outrageous!" Devers said. "It
looks to me like they are hiding something. This
is information which should be made available to
everyone in to the community. It benefits
everyone to keep them on file. Those lists are a
part of our voting history, they are part of our
heritage and should never be destroyed. It
doesn’t make the city look good, I’ll
tell you that. I just can’t believe
it."
Since the election department has cited their
actions as legal, according to the state laws,
Rumbo contacted six of the surrounding
communities to find out what they do with voter
lists. Methuen, Andover, North Andover,
Haverhill, and Lowell all stated on the record
that they keep their lists well over four years
as a courtesy to the voters and potential
candidates interested in the process. All five of
the communities we spoke with said that their
voting lists are put into the central computer
registry system so that candidates and citizens
can get the information readily and conveniently.
"We have a computer system and we put all
the voter lists on the system. You can download
them to a disk or you can search to see if a
particular person has voted in each
election," the Town Clerk in Andover told
us. "I am always afraid to throw these out
because you never know when someone is gong to
need that information," said the City Clerk
of Haverhill. "We are not as lucky as you
guys in Lawrence, we don’t have an entire
election department to do that work. Our city
clerk’s office has to do all that but we are
pretty well up to date and we do save the
lists," replied a secretary to the Methuen
City Clerk.
According the Secretary of State’s office,
the central voting registry is a computer system
that is hooked up to every community in the
Commonwealth. All five communities we spoke with
said they already have their voting lists on
computer even though some of them do not have an
election department staffed separately to do that
job. Lawrence has a City Clerk’s office as
well as an Election Department, staffed with at
least three full time workers in city hall.
District "A" Councilor Patrick
Blanchette said the destruction of the list
"disturbed" him as well, "I would
hate to be a candidate in the next election and
not be able to sit downstairs in City Hall with
my highlighter and copy a list of voters from the
last couple of elections. How else do interested
candidates and political researchers identify the
voting trends? They have always kept them longer
than the two years, so why (destroy the lists)
this year?? It makes you wonder! I would like to
see them make room in city hall for the lists for
a longer period of time."
Blanchette said he would like to see the city
keep these voting lists and said that some rule
or policy should be instituted to keep purged
lists and protect them for at least a four year
period. Brian McNeff from the Secretary of
State’s office told Rumbo that no purged
lists were given to his office or on the central
computer registry. Unless someone physically
copied the list before it was destroyed, the
purged voting list from the 1997 election has
been lost forever. Any investigation by the
Justice Department or any other government agency
looking to study the election process from before
1998 will be unable to do so.
The Justice department would not comment on the
situation, as they refuse to comment on ongoing
investigations.
*This is the story which ran in the last notebook
segment of Rumbo. I want the readers to see how
issues are twisted by this administration when
they get caught with their pants down.
Destruction of Election
Material
Recently I began to compile research
material on voting trends in the City of
Lawrence. I sent one of my friends to get
a copy of the "scrubbed" list
of eligible voters who actually voted in
the last mayoral election. Every year the
election department has held mayoral
election lists until after the next
mayoral election. This was always done so
that mayoral candidates can look at the
list and concentrate on voters who
actually turned out in the previous
mayoral election. It gives the candidate
an idea who actually votes, so they know
who to concentrate their campaign efforts
on. But the election department
doesn’t have the 1997 mayoral
election voting list. It was destroyed.
WHY? The reason given by one election
department worker was "there
wasn’t enough room in city
hall" he said. The election list is
about four inches thick and would easily
fit on a shelf or if scanned into a
computer wouldn’t take up any room
at all. What this means is, anyone
wishing to oppose Patty Dowling in the
next election will start at a heavy
disadvantage because under Mayor Dowling,
the list of voters who cared enough to
show up in 1997 was destroyed. Anyone who
has a "scrubbed" list, partial
or whole, from the 1997 mayoral election,
please get in touch with me as soon as
possible. This is vital information for
any community to have. I wonder with all
that lack of space at city hall, if
there’s enough room for those rubber
stamps "someone" uses to sign
contracts? Some things we have room
for.....others are not so important.
Funny, huh?
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