Boston city councilors urge Massachusetts Secretary of State to follow through on receivership threat after election ballot fiasco

BOSTON — Two Boston city councilors are pressing Secretary of State William Galvin to follow through on his threat to place the Boston Election Department into receivership for its Election Day missteps that left polling places short on ballots.

Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy penned a letter to Secretary Galvin on Thursday, to formally express their “serious concerns about the ballot shortfalls at polling stations, delays for our residents, and poor lighting” at a South End polling location that left voters there using cell phones to illuminate their ballots.

“The ballot shortages at a number of precincts are alarming and warrant placing the City of Boston’s Election Division under state receivership,” the councilors wrote.

The letter references Flynn’s experience visiting Cathedral High School in the South End, where the concerns he heard about poor lighting at that polling location caused him to contact the city’s Election Department.

While there, the letter states, the polling location ran out of English-only ballots, “leaving residents only able to use the Chinese ballots.” Both languages, English and Chinese, were included on the translated ballots, but “the limited lighting made it challenging and confusing to read the ballot.”

“All voters, including our seniors and persons with disabilities, should have equal access to cast their ballots with proper lighting and conditions,” the letter states.

The councilors’ letter goes on to cite reports that indicate “multiple wards and precincts had either run out of ballots or run low, forcing voters to wait in line while Boston Police provided delivery of the additional ballots.”

“It is also concerning that attempts of election workers to contact the Elections Department regarding the ballot shortages and other issues of concern were unsuccessful,” Flynn and Murphy wrote.

“Tuesday’s events require a city, state and federal investigation,” their letter states. “This is a civil rights issue and Tuesday’s lack of preparation and communication is simply unacceptable and egregious. We urge that you place the City of Boston’s Election Division under state receivership.”

A request for comment from the Secretary of State’s office was not returned on Thursday.

Galvin had slammed the city’s handling of the election as “incompetence” on Wednesday, when he also indicated that he was leaning toward putting the Boston Election Department under receivership, a move he took in 2006 for a similar election fiasco.

“I anticipate that may well be the case again,” Galvin said, when announcing the “immediate investigation into the practices and procedures of the Boston Election Department.”

The investigation that was launched and resulted in receivership in 2006 was also for ballot shortages at Boston polling places — that year for the November state election where former Gov. Deval Patrick was elected.

Both elections were described by Mayor Michelle Wu as having “very high turnout” on Wednesday, a factor the city has attributed as leading to the shortage. She said the city has historically based the number of ballots provided to polling locations on prior voter turnout in similar elections, with her office saying later that day that there was a “miscalculation in formulas to set ballot deliveries.”

Galvin said numerous polling locations, particularly in Hyde Park, Roslindale, West Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain, and one location in Dorchester, “were not provided enough ballots despite the fact that 766,200 ballots had been printed and delivered to the city.” Boston’s population was cited as roughly 675,000 in the 2020 census.

Along with complaints from residents, election officials stationed in individual precincts contacted Galvin’s office to report the shortages and indicate they were unable to contact the Boston Election Commission.

“You cannot operate an election without answering the phone in the Election Department,” Galvin said on Wednesday. “Yet that’s what they tried to do yesterday. It was only because my office, out of desperation at 5 o’clock, ordered them to place all of the remaining ballots out to the polls and use police vehicles with sirens that the situation was resolved. That’s just not the way we run elections in Massachusetts.”

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