Who Has Spent What in Franklin Election (as of 8 Days Before the Election)?

This year's Franklin Town Election is probably not the most expensive ever but does include one fundraising champ -- Town Council candidate Maxwell Morrongiello, who raised nearly $5,000, mostly through the Democrat online funding platform, ActBlue.  On the other hand several candidates for Town Council, both incumbent and challengers, have raised and spent next to nothing. In the case of incumbents, most have a stash of political signs previously paid for and appear to have relied on them and their reputation to win reelection.

The data below is derived from campaign finance documents accessed through the Town Clerk's Website at https://franklinma.gov/357/Elections-ArchiveOffice-of-Campaign-and- namely, the '"8-days before the election" financial reports. Each of the vertical lines represents one thousand dollars of funds.

Where there is neither a green bar nor a blue bar on the graphic below,  the candidate reported neither income nor expenditures. A few candidate did not appear to have filed the paperwork, namely, Diane Daddario, Erin Ford Gallagher,  and William Gagne.

Ted Cormier-Leger's financial statement, showing roughly a thousand dollars in donations and a similar amount in expenditures does not appear to have included the ad placed for his real estate practice in the most recent Greet magazine, which described him as a "Community Builder" and was accompanied by an adulatory profile of the Cormier-Leger family.  A reportable expense? 

Maybe. 

Others in the past who combined real estate with town politics were far more forward in blaring political messages through their business ads and did not often report such expenditures.

It is certainly a gray area. 

An official of the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance responded to an inquiry on the subject, as follows: "The campaign finance law is a disclosure statute. If money is raised or spent to influence voters, within various limits and restrictions, disclosure is required. If an advertisement is designed to influence voters, such spending is disclosed on campaign finance reports. Generally, an ad designed to influence voters will have language or symbols that indicate that the reader should vote for the person."

With regard to the content of this article, please note that not every candidate completed the form in the same way. We have attempted to correctly interpret information but may have been unsuccessful. Please inform us of any errors and when in doubt, consult that link at the top of the article to the online reports.

For information on candidates, previous coverage and links to sources can be found here.