There were “serious problems” with how Boston administered its last election in November, an investigation found, leading Massachusetts’ secretary of state to order reform at the Boston Election Commission.
Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin’s office had been investigating since ballots ran out at several Boston polling places on Election Day this November, and on Monday, the results were announced.
“Serious problems occurred in connection with the administration of the State Election in the City,” the report reads, going ton to say that the Boston Election Department didn’t give enough ballots to polling locations, leading to outages for significant periods.
“This resulted in voters in the City experiencing needless and unacceptable delays in voting and, in some cases, disfranchisement because the voter was unable to wait,” the report said.
Secretary of State William Galvin is launching an investigation into ballot shortages at some Boston polling locations.
Under state law, at least one ballot has to be available for each voter, Galvin’s office said. The investigation also found that the Boston Election Department didn’t establish proper communication systems with polling locations ahead of Election Day, which exacerbated the shortage problem, or train poll workers about ballot shortages or issues with vote tabulators.
Galvin is ordering the city to review and overhaul how it conducts training, communication and ballot supplying, and is appointing someone to oversee that process while helping at least with the municipal elections this year and state elections next year, if not longer.
NBC10 Boston has reached out to the Boston Election Commission for comment.
Soon after Election Day, Galvin said he had emails showing his staff, city election workers and police were frustrated about what happened.
“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.”
Boston officials say strong turnout contributed to ballot shortages at some polling places, with voters having to wait as new ballots were brought in.
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.
Mayor Michelle Wu has said it was “completely unacceptable for people to have to wait for significant periods of time without ballot access,” and Boston election commissioner Eneida Tavares released said in a statement after the announcement the investigation was beginning that the city was auditing what happened and would support the investigation.
“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,” Tavares said.
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.
