Massachusetts towns and cities have 15 days after the election to submit their final ballot count.
In the days after November 5, one western Mass. community which has voted for the Democratic candidate since 1988 appeared for more than a week to have flipped.
Like in other municipalities this week, West Springfield Town Clerk Otto Frizzell had a handful of ballots to open. Two were international and others were provisional ballots, now confirmed.
In the end, with about 12,800 ballots cast in the presidential race, Frizzell said Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump by 51 votes.
It's not a mathematical tie, he said, but it's very close with a 60% turnout.
Election night and the following week
When the polls closed Nov. 5, and for more than a week later, it appeared West Springfield residents chose Donald Trump by just six votes.
It would have been the first time the town voted Republican since Ronald Regan ran for a second term in 1984.
Before the final ballot count, West Springfield Mayor William Reichelt said voter support for Trump didn't really change.
"Support for the Democratic candidate decreased," Reichelt said, "People didn't show up, for whatever reason."
In the end, even though Harris did eventually win in West Springfield, less registered Democrats voted for her this year than they did for Joe Biden in 2020.
Reichelt said he disagrees with the opinion of his friend and former mayor of West Springfield Edward Sullivan.
When it appeared Trump was ahead Sullivan told him, "''Oh, this is a huge message they're sending to local and state and national,'" Reichelt said.
Sullivan clarified that.
He doesn't think people sent a message saying "we like Donald Trump."
"I really believe that people ignored the felon who was sending the message and just voted for some of the things that they believe they preferred," Sullivan said, "whether it's strengthening the border, lowering taxes or [changing] some of the policies that have been placed with the Democrats."
What is changing in West Springfield?
No matter who won this year, in recent elections, West Springfield has been transitioning slowly from reliably Democratic to more of a mix of politics.
Last week Sullivan said he thinks the shift started in 1999, when the town changed its charter and began holding nonpartisan elections.
It weakened the Democratic party structure he said, and added, in more recent years the number of conservative households in West Springfield has increased.
"I believe that's played into the transition from a pro-Democratic town to a kind of a town split," Sullivan said.
This week, West Springfield Town Clerk Frizzell had a similar take on the final election results.
"So no candidate received a mandate from the voters in West Springfield," Frizzell said, "but it would not be accurate, in my opinion to say 'West Springfield is a Trump town [or] West Springfield is a Harris town.' It's split."
