By: Tom Duggan- 9/19/25
LAWRENCE CANCELS VOTE BY MAIL
After Lawrence City Councilor Fidelina Santiago was convicted and sentenced this week to six months in prison for stealing mail-in ballots and committing voter fraud in the 2023 city council race, Lawrence Councilors voted last night to cancel mail-in voting for that city’s November 4th municipal election for mayor, city council, and school committee.
The Valley Patriot originally broke that story of voter fraud in November of 2023.
Voting to cancel mail-in voting for November were Lawrence Councilors Stephany Infante (District E), Ana Levy (At-Large), Jeovanny Rodriguez (At-Large), Wendy Luzon (District B) Vivian Marmol (District D), and Marc Laplante (District F).
Voting present or abstaining were Councilors Celina Reyes (At-Large) and Gregory DelRosario (District C).
According to Massachusetts state law, municipalities must allow mail-in voting unless the city council holds a hearing and votes to opt-out of the procedure within 45 days of an election. The council had until tomorrow to make this decision.
According to City Clerk Eileen Bernal the state considers preliminary elections and final elections as two separate elections and therefor the Lawrence City Council’s hearing last night was within state law.
THE SILENCE WAS DEAFENING
Ironically, not one councilor even addressed the fact that one of their colleagues is currently sitting in a prison cell and that one of her lasts votes as a fraudulent city councilor was to vote to extend vote-by-mail, the very method she used to steal her District A seat in 2023.
With Santiago’s empty seat looming large at the council table, Lawrence officials pretended that it had no bearing on their actions and that they all suddenly had an epiphany after Tuesday’s preliminary election that vote-by mail was a bad idea.
Each councilor went around the table talking about complaints of irregularities in Tuesday’s election but when Richard Reyes of the city’s election department came to the microphone, he revealed the shocking truth that only THREE complaints were received about mail-in-ballots from Tuesday’s race, certainly not enough for an entire city council to hold an emergency meeting to eliminate vote-by-mail for the entire city’s November election.
“We do have three formal written complaints by voters regarding their ballot being picked up,” Rodriguez told the council.
While several councilors said that they were concerned about the elderly and disabled not being able to vote if they cancelled vote-by-mail, election official Richard Reyes reminded them that absentee ballots were still legal and available for anyone who could not vote in person on election day.
“That has been in place since long before me, and I’ve been here for 24 years.”
COUNCILORS TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY
AT LEAST TWO PEOPLE NOTICED!
Luis Robles, a candidate for the Lawrence School Committee who was on the ballot this week, spoke during the public hearing, trying to get the councilors to admit this move to cancel vote-by-mail was about Fidelina Santiago’s stolen ballots and not Tuesday’s preliminary.
But, when he asked them to explain why they were doing this in the middle of an election, none of the councilors would admit that it had anything to do with their imprisoned colleague.
“The question that has to be asked now is: why in the middle of the election are we doing this when it should’ve been done before? I’m a little curious as to why it’s being done now,” Robles asked at the public hearing.
Robles contacted The Valley Patriot after the meeting and said he believed city councilors needed to take responsibility for saying and doing nothing about Santiago’s voter fraud, especially when they all knew about it, saying he was “bothered” by their silence, adding that the voters deserved transparency on the matter “and so far we haven’t gotten any.”
“When I first saw the agenda item about opting-out of mail-in voting, I thought the council was finally going to address Fidelina’s guilty plea, and take election integrity seriously.”
“I’ve always pushed for things like ending mail-in ballots and requiring voter ID, so I was hopeful. But as I sat there I realized it wasn’t about stolen ballots or protecting voters at all. It was about which candidates benefit most from mail-in votes. The whole discussion wasn’t about fairness for voters; it was about protecting certain candidates.”
Robles told the council he was disappointed that more voters were not present to speak out at the hearing.
“I thought this was going to be jam-packed with residents, unfortunately it’s jam-packed with politicians, so it seems like this issue is more important to the politicians than the actual residents.”
MORE CANDIDATES SPEAK OUT
Mayoral Candidate and hero firefighter Juan Manny Gonzalez told the council he doesn’t trust vote-by-mail.
“The system, after watching it on September 16th, I don’t trust it. I don’t feel comfortable with it being one of the candidates. So, I hope that tonight we can look into this and definitely say ‘no’ to mail-in votes on November 4th. I don’t think it’s going to be fair, transparent, and respectful to our voters. We should be thinking about them before anybody else.”
Candidate for District A City Council Lissy Rivas told the council that the process isn’t exactly the problem it’s the candidates. She detailed how her neighbors had complained to her about candidates knocking on their doors and making them feel uncomfortable asking who they were voting for and intimidating them after receiving their ballot by mail. She said some candidates actually “chase voters”.
“They (voters) are feeling uncomfortable. I am seeing videos on social media of candidates recording (them) and asking, who are you voting for? That’s not right! I would be afraid if somebody was knocking on my door questioning me, asking who am I voting for?”
Rivas said that the council needs to respect the voters and put them first, saying she supports doing away with mail-in-ballots.
School Committeeman Jonathan Guzman told the council on a zoom call that he supported vote by mail but the way it is being treated in Lawrence has made him change his mind. “I fully believe in the system of mail-in-ballots. This was created to make voting more accessible, and in many ways, it has done just that for the people of Lawrence. This process has helped the residents who faced barriers to have their voice heard. But unfortunately, we have also seen it being misused, jeopardizing that very opportunity.”
Guzman said he believed mail-in-ballots should be cancelled at least for this year.
SOME STUNNING NEW ELECTION NUMBERS
City Council At-Large Nilson Rosario surprised the crowd with some interesting information that lead to Councilor Infante digging deep into election numbers.
“I want to talk quickly about accountability and leadership during the presidential elections,” Rosario told the council.
“We heard that there were no issues. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump were not walking around Lawrence trying to take advantage of the system. The system worked. It’s not the people messing it up, it’s the candidates. We have to show leadership and use the system correctly.”
Like Robles, he questioned why the council was changing the rules in the middle of an election.
“This shouldn’t be happening after the primary election and to echo what Luis Robles said, it should’ve been before. But we’re here today, and whatever happens we need to move forward. Let’s show leadership and do things the right way.”
LAWRENCE ELECTIONS BY THE NUMBERS
With Richard Reyes from the city’s election department in the audience, Rosario’s comments about no complaints during the presidential elections prompted Councilor Infante to ask him for the hard data on Lawrence elections giving the public a snapshot that told the whole story.
Since there were more than double the number of mail-in voters in the presidential election of 2024 than in the preliminary election this week, surely the number of complaints would exponentially higher.
But that was not the case.
Councilor Infante asked Reyes if the city received any communications from the state on the way that the city handled the 2024 presidential election.
“Yes. We always have a communication with the state regardless of what election it is, to see how many complaints we got. For the last four years, we have not gotten one complaint to my office. The only complaints the state gets are on local elections regarding the vote-by-mail, (campaign) literature going inside the polling locations, and candidates going inside (polling locations).
“How many voters came out for the presidential election”, Infante asked.
“On November 2024 we had an estimate vote-by-mail of 8,046, and for the people who voted in-person there were 2,046 (votes) and not one complaint from that presidential election.”
“That was a historical number for us.”
“It seems to me that honestly, during the local elections that it’s our main problem.”
Council Infante asked if any member of his office had experienced intimidation for trying to do their job while managing the municipal election this week and he said “yes”.
Infante: “How many early votes were there for the preliminary election this year?”
“We had a total (early voters) 874 people voted in person.”
Infante asked for all the stats for this week’s preliminary to compare it to the presidential election.
“In person, on Election Day: 6,070 voted.”
“Total absentee votes: between 28 and 32.”
“Total of mail-in votes: 798 … and out of the 798 mail in votes, District B requested 332 of them.”
District B is Wendy Luzon’s District who only won by five votes on Tuesday.
Infante asked Reyes if the election department received any complaints of voter fraud for the preliminary election this week. “Any formal reported complaints regarding potential or alleged voter intimidation or voter fraud situations?”
“For Voter intimidation? Yes, but not written,” Reyes responded. “But we do have three formal written complaints by voters regarding their ballot being picked up.”
Infante asked if, within those written complaints, did these voters explain or name certain individuals involved in the alleged fraud. “Yes, they do,” he admitted.
“Three complaints? There were only three complaints and they want us to believe that’s what caused the council to meet on a Friday night and cancel mail-in ballots? I don’t believe it and I don’t think anyone else hearing that number believes it either,” Luis Robles told The Valley Patriot after the meeting.
TAKING LIBERTIES TO PROTECT THE VOTERS
Richard Reyes of the Lawrence Election Division (under Mayor DePena) also revealed that because there has been so much voter fraud in Lawrence in the last several years he devised a way of tracking mail-in votes that are turned in to city hall.
This year, when someone turned in a bunch of mail-in-ballots, “…we’d write the person‘s name, what time, and the date that they brought them in. We did that just to cover ourselves because in 2023 a lot of voters were calling saying that they never submitted an application. So, for this election my staff and I took it upon ourselves, and we asked the state. They said it was perfectly legal to keep track of anybody who brings in applications for vote-by-mail in case a voter calls and says ‘I never submitted that.’
“That way we can pull out the folder and say, ‘this is the person, on this date, and this time, who brought the application in.’”
FLIP FLOPPING COUNCILORS
The only three councilors have consistently voted against having vote-by-mail. They are Councilors Ana Levy, Marc Laplante, and Stephany Infante.
Councilor DelRosario voted against it in March but abstained this time, Councilor Reyes voted for it in March but also abstained last night, Councilors Luzon, Rodriguez, and Marmol all changed their vote from supporting vote-by-mail to opposing it.
The name Fidelina Santiago, references to stolen ballots, and her empty seat at the table were never once discussed or referenced the entire night.
The most outspoken and consistent city councilor who has supported Voter-ID and opposed mail-in-ballots, as well as begged the Secretary of State to oversee Lawrence’s elections was Ana Levy, City Councilor At-Large.