Working to make the Braintree Democratic Town Committee more active. I began to explore democratic town committees and their data on the Massachusetts Office of Campaigns and Political Finance website http://www.ocpf.us.
Democratic Town Committees
From that research, we now have more accurate numbers on the number of organized or un-organized Democratic town committees. Since the Presidential Primary in 2016. I believe 39% of town and city committees across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have not filed statements of organization in the last year
So, 61% of town committees are active. Apparently, there are 352 towns and cities in Massachusetts, per the excel sheet from the Mass Office of Political Campaigns and Finance. Which is odd because I thought there were only 351 towns and cities. I think I’ve discovered the issue, the town of Aquinnah changed its name from Gay Head 20 years ago.
However, if we include ward committees, there are 642 town, city and ward committees, of which 60.5% are active, or 39.5% non-active.
All this information is freely available through the Secretary of State’s Office. Now there maybe committees that are active but haven’t filed. Though if a committee hasn’t filed its Statement of Organization in 2017, the committee is unorganized and really behind.
Republican Town Committees
Reviewing the Republican Town Committees, it looks as if 48% are active and 52% non-active in the Commonwealth. Interestingly, Gay Head or Aquinnah doesn’t have a Republican Town Committee, so we have 351 Republican town committees.
By the way, the Boston City Committee is non-functioning, and hasn’t organized since 1989. Mayor Menino was the last City Committee chair. Several Boston Ward committee are active and organized, but not all of them in the city.
Check out both the infographic on active Democratic Town & City political committees.
What do you think of this information?
Update 3/27: After some feedback from folks around the State, I decided to change the title of the infographic to organized instead of active.
Are both Aquinnah and Gay Head listed in the roster?
If so, it would be helpful to inform the Massachusetts Office of Political Campaigns & Finance. The Office can make the correction on the Excel spreadsheet. And for future users, it will be corrected.
On the Republican Committee list, if Aquinnah nor Gay head are listed, the total listed would be 350.
During my career, I worked with Massachusetts demographic data, and whenever I detected an error, I would inform the agency or the source. Every time I did this this, I receive thanks and appreciation from the offices.
Hi Joan, thanks for your comment. I believe both of the towns are listed, so we have 352 towns instead of 351. Interestingly, this is only for the Democratic Town Committees, not the republican, I guess they did not have an organized committee for republicans in the town. I didn’t contact them, because I was thinking they need to keep the entry in the field so that folks can go back in time to pull the old reports. But it has been a while.