Local News
“Entire batches were rejected. Towns where the campaign had supposedly gathered signatures appeared to have little or no actual activity.”
Delegates at the Massachusetts GOP Convention in Worcester MA on Saturday April, 25 2026. Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe
The GOP-endorsed candidate for lieutenant governor did not collect the 10,000 signatures required to make it on the ballot, her campaign said, as it blamed a paid signature gatherer amid forging concerns.
Anne Brensley, who won the party’s endorsement for lieutenant governor with more than 56 percent of the vote, more than double the next closest candidate, said she collected more than 7,500 “legitimate” signatures through grassroots efforts and paid a Republican party insider to gather 6,500.
Joe Bronske, the chair of the Weymouth Republican Town Committee, told Brensley’s campaign that his company had gathered 6,203 signatures as of April 30 and had received $15,000 from the campaign, according to an email screenshot shared by the campaign.
Bronske focused his efforts on Weymouth, Braintree, Quincy, Easton, Hanover, and Rockland, but “the story started collapsing,” Brensley’s campaign claims.
“Entire batches were rejected. Towns where the campaign had supposedly gathered signatures appeared to have little or no actual activity,” Brensley’s campaign statement said. “Town Clerks from three towns contacted the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office with forgery concerns.”
Bronske did not return a request for comment.
Brensley’s campaign is asking the Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin to extend the deadline two weeks to collect more signatures.
Deb O’Malley, a Galvin spokesperson, told The Boston Globe that clerks from three cities and towns had reached out with concerns about potential fraudulent signatures submitted on behalf of some candidates. O’Malley said Galvin cannot extend or alter the deadline for signature gathering because it is set in law, per the Globe.
According to Brensley’s campaign, attorney general candidate Michael Walsh and fellow lieutenant governor candidate Anne Manning-Martin also worked with Bronske and “face difficult ballot access issues.” Manning-Martin did not respond to requests for comment Thursday evening.
A spokesperson for Walsh said clerks have until May 26 to complete certification of signature, and clerks have reported receiving more than enough certified signatures to get the candidate on the ballot.
In the alleged email included by Brensley’s campaign, Bronske, the owner of Ancestors’s Trail Genealogy, indicated that 7,000 signatures would cost $35,000. The state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance records do not show any payments between Brensley and Bronske, as of Thursday.
Brensley told the Globe she intends to run as a write-in candidate if she’s unable to get on the ballot.
“I said that I was on a mission to change a state, and I mean it,” Brensley said, per the Globe. “And if I have to run a full-blown campaign as a sticker candidate, knowing that I’m at a huge disadvantage for doing that, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Molly Farrar is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on education, politics, crime, and more.
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