Director of Elections Will Rosenberry
As if Will Rosenberry didn’t have enough to do in his first four months on the job, Secretary of State William Galvin handed the Mill City’s Election Director another task; conduct a post-election audit…and get it done fast!
The Secretary of State’s Office notified Lowell’s Election Office yesterday that three precincts were randomly selected as part of the routine, post-election process required by state law.
The three precincts are Ward 1-Precinct 2 (McAvinnue School), Ward 2-Precinct 3 (Robinson School) and Ward 5-Precinct 4 (Pyne School).
The audit comes with a number of requirements and timelines, including publishing it’s date, time and location by Monday November 11 (Veterans Day), beginning the audit by Tuesday November 12, and providing an audit report to the Secretary of State’s Office by Tuesday November 19.
The audit must be held in an accessible location in full public view and must be conducted under the direction of the Board of Registrars or Election Commission. The registrars can designate the local election official to perform the audit.
The city is not required to use poll workers and while party requirements for poll workers do not apply, it is recommended that the teams of two hand counting the ballots not be registered in the same party, if possible.
The audit encompasses the Presidential race, U.S. Senator and Congressional races, Representative in General Court and one randomly selected statewide ballot question.
Lowell’s “winning” of the audit lottery is just the latest task charged to an Elections Director and Elections Office that has undertaken a number of challenges recently, including Rosenberry replacing Greg Pappas on the job August 1st, the day after Labor Day State Primary and this past Tuesday’s high turnout election.
“I can’t say I’m thrilled to have been selected,” Rosenberry tells InsideLowell. “We’re exhausted, having worked nearly every single day since August 5, and still have a lot of work to do to wrap up the election. Having said that, I’m looking forward to demonstrating that the system works and thanks to my incredible staff and a dedicated team of poll workers, we’ll have no problem completeing the audit and meeting all of our legal obligations.”
For those members of the public interested in observing the process, it will take place in the Mayor’s Reception room at Lowell City Hall. We will publish information on the specific days and times as soon as that becomes available, but Rosenberry adds the procedure begins Tuesday and is expected to continue “for a few days.”
