After ballots ran out at several Boston polling places on Election Day, Massachusetts' secretary of state announced an investigation into "significant problems" with how Tuesday's vote was administered by the Boston Elections Department.
Secretary Bill Galvin wrote to the chair of the Boston Election Commission, Eneida Tavares, on Wednesday to inform her of the investigation.
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"Although it appears that these locations ultimately received ballots, voters were subjected to unreasonable and unnecessary delays in exercising their franchise," the letter said. "This is unacceptable and contravenes the most fundamental principles of our democratic process."
Galvin elaborated on what happened at a news conference, saying he has emails showing his staff, city election workers and police were frustrated about what happened.
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"They were not responding to their own employees who were reaching out to them, they were not responding to us," he said, adding, "Unfortunately, this is not new."
He noted that he had to step in for a similar situation in 2006 — prompting then-Mayor Thomas Menino to call a general alarm, sending a cartoonish number of police cars onto the streets and the city election office placed under state receivership — and in 2021.
Other large cities don't have the kind of problems that Boston has, Galvin said, because they follow instructions his office sends out.
"This is obviously something I'd rather not be doing today, but it's so egregious," Galvin said.
Tavares released a statement late Wednesday:
The City takes our responsibility to effectively administer free and fair elections extremely seriously as the cornerstone for democratic participation. It is completely unacceptable for voters to experience undue delay at the polls, as any barriers in the voting process can lead to disenfranchisement. The City has begun a full audit into the delays from ballot shortages at polling locations during yesterday’s election, and will work closely with the Secretary of State’s office to support the state’s investigation so that the findings can deliver needed improvements to our voting system.
A review of what happened found that the number of ballots that had to be delivered to precincts was miscalculated, according to the city, which said it highlighted the need for operational improvements.
Earlier Wednesday, Mayor Michelle Wu said the city was investigating what happened.
"It is completely unacceptable for people to have to wait for significant periods of time without ballot access and on the one hand having high turnout is a great problem to have. But we need to make sure that we’re on top of all those issues because protecting access to the ballot is the most fundamental part of our democracy," Wu said.
Read Galvin's letter explaining why his office is investigating here:
On Tuesday night, the city shared a statement noting ballot shortages — and police help replenishing the stocks — at several polling locations. Read their statement here:
With strong turnout across Boston this Election Day, several polling locations across the city have experienced ballot shortages during the evening voting rush. The Elections Department has been working urgently to remedy this through coordinating delivery of additional ballots to precincts with the help of Boston Police and contacting all polling locations to anticipate and prevent further ballot shortages. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion, and are grateful for the diligent efforts of poll workers throughout the city to ensure that every voter can exercise their right to vote. Any voter in line by 8:00 p.m. at their polling location will be able to vote, and polling places will remain open to guarantee this access.
Later, a spokeswoman for Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin shared more details on what took place, and said that anyone in line by 8 p.m. had a chance to vote, and that the city was instructed to have poll workers call any voter who chose not to wait for the ballots' delivery earlier.
Read her statement here:
Unfortunately, it appears that the Boston Elections Department chose not to send all ballots in their possession to polling places today. After receiving reports that certain precincts in the Hyde Park, Roslindale, and West Roxbury areas were running low on ballots or had run out of ballots, Secretary Galvin instructed the Boston Elections Department to send ballots to polling locations using police cars to deliver them as quickly as possible.
The city was also instructed to provide ballots to other locations, to ensure that they would not run out of ballots, and to instruct poll workers in affected precincts to get contact information for any voter who chose not to wait in line, so they could be contacted once ballots had arrived at their polling location.
Anyone who was in line at their polling place at 8 p.m. was able to vote, whether or not they were waiting for a delivery of ballots at that time.
While Kamala Harris was quickly projected to win Massachusetts' electoral votes over Donald Trump, the commonwealth had five ballot questions that were being closely contested.
