During the 2022 election the new Town Clerk in Rowley mistakenly spoiled a bunch of mail-in ballots. She didn’t know that ballots rejected by vote counting machines are legal ballots and must be counted by hand, so she wrote “spoiled” on them and set them aside.
This was not discovered until a close race for State Representative between Kristin Kassner and Lenny Mirra resulted in a recount. That’s when lawyers for Kassner discovered the pile of improperly spoiled ballots and, with the recount over and Kassner down by four votes, they were allowed to dig through the large pile of spoiled ballots and pull out just five of them.
This is how Kassner “won by one vote.”
This was confirmed by the Secretary of State’s office.
Of course the only fair and honorable thing would’ve be to count all the improperly spoiled ballots, which the Mirra team tried to do, even taking the matter to court. But as Mirra fought hard to count all ballots Kassner fought equally hard making sure those perfectly legal ballots never got counted.
She now represents the voters of Rowley even though she paid lawyers thousands of dollars to discard their votes.
Upon taking office Kassner immediately bowed down to leadership, voting with Speaker Ron Mariano 100% of the time. Despite running on promises of being a strong, independent voice Kassner has caved to party leadership, even voting against measures to address the terrible record Massachusetts has on openness and transparency.
When Auditor Diana DiZoglio tried audit the legislature they refused to consent, so she got the measure put on a ballot question, which passed with 72% of the vote. Despite this, Speaker Mariano still refused to consent, so some house members put the matter before the entire House for a roll call vote.
Incredulously, Kassner once again sided with Speaker Ron Mariano and voted against the audit, trampling the will of her own voters.
Kassner sits on the Joint Committee for Municipalities and Regional Government which held hearings on 3A, the MBTA zoning law forcing towns to build ultra dense multifamily housing. During the hearings Kassner didn’t ask a single question or produce any remarks, choosing instead to just stare at her phone, waiting to take orders from Speaker Mariano.
She would later vote against any reforms to the onerous law, even voting against a delay in implementation so that towns could have time to comply with the law.
Kassner on phone during hearing on MBTA zoning law.
Roll call vote on delaying 3A (MBTA zoning law) for 18 months
Roll call vote on giving veterans priority in shelter housing.
She even voted against a six month residency requirement for shelter housing.
Roll call vote on six-month residency requirement for shelter housing.
As she has settled in as an insider on Beacon Hill Kassner has also received thousands of dollars in donations from special interest groups and real estate developers, even as her district deals with a huge influx of new developments and the repercussions that come with them.