In the third election of a busy year, voters look to keep long-time Sen. Mark C. Montigny in the Second Bristol and Plymouth seat, according to the unofficial election results posted by each town’s respective clerk Tuesday, Sept. 3.

The district includes the city of New Bedford and the towns of Acushnet, Dartmouth, Mattapoisett and Fairhaven. With no Republican candidate, the results of this primary determine the seat. 

In Dartmouth, Montigny received 2,074 votes, approximately 80.4%, and his contender, first-time candidate Molly Kivi received 506, which is about 19.6% of the vote, according to the unofficial results. 

Similar results are reflected district-wide, with Montigny collecting approximately 80% of the vote in each municipality.

After hearing the unofficial results, Montigny released a statement:  “I am honored that voters across New Bedford and the surrounding towns continue to place their faith in me as their proxy in the State House at a time when incumbents are being dismissed simply for their existence and not on their record.”

He said he believes it's a testament to the work of himself and his staff “against an ineffective bureaucracy that too often fails constituents in their daily lives.”

He added, “Contested races are healthy, and I am thankful for the continued support of my hometown as I continue to push back on special interests and deliver massive infusions of state funding and innovative policy and legislation to keep our home the special and unique place that it is along Buzzards Bay.”

Kivi said while she accepts the loss, “something smells fishy.”

After doing an analysis of election data, Kivi said Montigny commonly loses 20% of the vote to his opponents or through blanks, adding she feels with the campaign work she has put in and what she heard from constituents, the results don’t make sense: “Numbers that smooth just don't exist in nature.”

She said running was meant to be a conversation starter and she’s not finished speaking, so this November she intends to run a “simple” write-in campaign and is looking for more of the districts support.

Kivi said she faced difficulties while campaigning, including what she felt to be resistance from the Secretary of State’s office in sending election public records, which she’ll be requesting again.

“There's a learned helplessness, and people are afraid,” she said. “They're just happy that one person is starting, and I'm trying to get more people to start talking.”

With one more election to go this year, Dartmouth Town Clerk Sarah Arruda says they’ve become “pretty second nature.”

Turnout was low for the primaries, with only about 16% of registered Dartmouth voters participating. According to Arruda, this is “on par” with how the last state primary went and can be expected when there aren’t many contested races.

The low participation was also seen during early voting, with about 150 people coming over the course of six days, Arruda said. Though mail-in ballots went “smoothly,” with approximately 5,200 ballots turned around in three days by a team at Town Hall, less than 50% have been returned.

“I think people are most interested in the November election that’s coming up,” she said.

As Town Hall begins to turn the page on the primaries, Arruda said they are starting to look toward the October Town Meeting as well as preparing the mail-in ballots for the November election.

Arruda said, “There’s a high level of stress and scrutiny around voting in this country, so it requires us to be very, very vigilant about making sure we are not making any errors.”

“We’ve been so lucky in Dartmouth that we have really, really good elections that go very smoothly,” she said. “We have a huge team of people that help us to get those things done.”