Debra Roberts, Christine Howe Elected To Stoughton Selectmen

STOUGHTON, MA — A new face will join the Stoughton Board of Selectmen, and an incumbent will keep her seat.

Voters have elected to Debra Roberts and incumbent Christine Howe to the board, according to unofficial results. Both incumbents running for School Committee, Sandra Groppi and Mary Kate Pina-Enokian, were able to fend off a challenge from Barbara Marshall to keep their seats.

Roberts, a new face to Stoughton politics, finished with the most votes at 1,311. Howe finished with 1,165 votes, while Peter Brown received 825 and Cynthia Walsh garnered 643.

"I am ecstatic and I'm humble," Roberts told Patch. "I have a lot of work to do. My constituents have concerns, and I have the energy and temperament to do it."

Roberts believed her financial background of 25-plus years resonated with voters. She said the most important issue for her is fiscal responsibility and answering "how do we grow the town in a pandemic."

"I believe they wanted fresh ideas," Roberts said. "They want resolutions to issues that have gone on a long time. With COVID-19, they want someone with a financial background to handle the pandemic and also someone that will address the [opioid] epidemic."

The election was originally supposed to happen a few months ago. Stoughton was headed toward a pretty normal spring election on April 7. Then coronavirus hit and changed pretty much everything.

Residents were given the option to vote by mail because of the pandemic, and some voters like Barbara L. took advantage of it without issue.

"I saw on Facebook that vote by mail was available, so I printed out an application and sent it in," she told Patch. "I got my ballot the Friday before election day, right before I watched the debates. I then saw on Facebook that the ballots could be dropped off at Town Hall. The drop box was well-marked, and the town clerk came out and chatted with me. It was a very smooth process."

Others like Robert Daniell liked the idea of voting my mail. He said him, his wife and son would have made that choice but felt the election snuck up on them too quick. Still, voting in person wasn't an issue for them.

"We were the only ones in the place at the time, but someone came in as we were leaving," Daniell said. "We had our own masks and gloves, but we used pens provided by the poll workers, which we turned in when we turned in our marked ballots."

Given the pandemic, town officials created safety and sanitation protocols to keep residents as comfortable as possible when they hit the polls. Every voter was given a plastic bag with gloves, a mask and a pen at the door. No one was allowed inside without a mask. When residents stood in line to vote, blue tape kept 6 feet of social distance between residents at polling locations.

Unofficial Results

Candidates can be found below with an asterisk indicating the candidate as an incumbent.

Selectmen (two seats open)

• Cynthia Walsh: 654
• Peter Brown: 825
• Christine Howe*: 1,165
• Debra Roberts: 1,311

School Committee (two seats open)

• Barbara Marshall: 958
• Sandra Groppi *: 1,270
• Mary Kate Pina-Enokian*: 1,252

Moderator

• Robert Mullen: 1,473