Massachusetts town clerks hit with pile of 2020 election records requests from 'conspiracy theorists,' Galvin says

SHARON - Massachusetts election clerks, who are supposed to be preparing for the 2022 election, are instead getting buried in requests for information about what happened in 2020.

Bob Cutler, the Foxboro Town Clerk and President of the Massachusetts Town Clerks Association, said he's never seen this amount of public record requests in his 15 years in office.

"It does have a very serious consequence as we are preparing for the 2022 election," Secretary of State Bill Galvin told WBZ-TV. "We're very concerned. This is a concerted effort by conspiracy theorists across the country who are election deniers."

Galvin is turning to the attorney general's office hoping for injunctive relief to prevent the flood of public record requests from 2020 coming into town offices like Sharon.

"In September we started to get a bunch more requests and also some people basically asking us not to get rid of any records," Sharon Town Clerk Mark Hogan told WBZ. "Suddenly it's a lot more all at once and town budgets aren't built to handle this," Hogan said.

He told WBZ they only have ten days to provide the records to those who want them.

"You just have to get it done because those are the laws," Hogan said.

Galvin is concerned town clerks will be scrambling now with the 2022 election quickly approaching.

"We do have early voting in Massachusetts, we have early voting by mail, this requires the activity of these clerks. They should not be harassed," Galvin said.

Galvin says these typically ordinary requests need to be monitored. Even his office is seeing an uptick from both in and out of state, requesting information from two years ago.

"Unfortunately, I think this is going to intensify as we get closer to the November 8th election and I'm determined to make sure it does not interrupt the rights of voters here in Massachusetts," he told WBZ.