In-person early voting has come to an end in Massachusetts as the state and the country brace for next week's main event.There were long lines Friday at City Hall in Boston, with people voting for a number of reasons, including the convenience — they'll be out of town or at work when the polls open Tuesday.
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"It's my first time voting. I just became a citizen so I'm like, let me get it done before Tuesday, even though I'd be excited to do it on Tuesday. I just can't go because of work," one early voter said.
Recent early voting numbers from the state show more than half a million voters cast ballots in-person while twice that number returned their ballots by mail. More than 31% of the state's registered voters had already cast ballots by Friday afternoon.
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In Boston, 28,000 voted in-person, while more than 50,000 ballots have been returned through the post office.
"It definitely increases the closer that we get to Election Day," said Eneida Tavares of the Boston Elections Commission.
Tavares offered this advice if you're still holding a mail-in-ballot, which needs to be postmarked by Nov. 5: "It's highly recommended that they use a ballot dropbox to return that ballot or hand-deliver the ballot to the Election Department."
Mail-in and early in-person voting seem to represent the future of elections. Still, not everyone's convinced.
"It should just be one day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., that's it. I just think that would produce the least amount of fraud,"
another voter said.
