The secretary of state will appoint a receiver to oversee Boston’s election division after there were “serious problems” with the city’s administration of the 2024 state and federal election, Secretary William Galvin’s office said on Monday.
An investigator in Galvin’s office also ordered Boston to take specific steps to overhaul practices and comply with state laws, after last November some city polling locations did not have enough ballots during Election Day — causing the secretary’s office to send police cars, sirens blaring, to rush extra ballots to those locations.
Galvin will appoint a designee to assist Boston with election administration. That person will remain in place through the 2025 and 2026 elections. The city has a mayoral race this year, with Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu facing off against at least challenger Josh Kraft; and in 2026 the state will hold legislative elections and elect a governor, constitutional officers, and a U.S. senator. Gov. Maura Healey is planning to seek a second term in 2026, and a number of Republicans are feeling out a potential race against the Democrat.
The report, issued Monday by appointed investigator Secretary of the State General Counsel Rebecca Murray, found that the city failed to distribute enough ballots to certain polling locations ahead of Election Day last November.
“The Boston Election Department failed to supply polling locations with a sufficient number of ballots causing some locations to run out of ballots for a significant period of time. 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,” Murray wrote.
The report also identified severe communication failures.
Many precincts were unable to reach the Election Department due to overwhelmed phone lines, delaying ballot resupply efforts. A backlog of unconnected calls left election workers unable to report the missing ballots to the city’s Elections Division, exacerbating the shortages, it found.
The city says that it also provides cellphones to each polling location, but did not say whether they were used in this instance, the report says.
“A major problem that was evident was the inability of the Boston Election Department to directly communicate, in real time, with each voting precinct in order to determine and prioritize those locations that had run out of ballots or had an immediate need for additional ballots,” it says.
State officials, upon being notified, intervened by dispatching representatives and coordinating emergency ballot deliveries with the Boston Police Department.
Murray also found that election workers were not adequately trained on how to respond to ballot shortages or machine malfunctions. The secretary’s report criticized city election preparation and called for comprehensive training reforms.
“While this Office recognizes and acknowledges that the City of Boston has many dedicated and committed election workers, I have found that many of the problems are a result of inadequate training materials that do not adequately cover contingencies experienced in this election,” Murray wrote in the report.
Following his receival of Murray’s report, Galvin issued his order for Boston’s election division to be overseen by a designee he assigns.
His order also requires that the election division provide a plan, subject to the secretary’s approval, to establish a designated team of city staff to contact polling locations throughout Election Day to check in on voter turnout, ballot supply voter machine issues, and other matters.
The city is required to develop comprehensive training programs for poll workers and wardens, create a plan for pre- and post-election day issues, and ensure that wardens can communicate with each other.
After the 2026 state election, a review will be conducted about whether the order will be extended, it says.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s office, which oversees the elections division, did not immediately respond to request for comment.
This isn’t the first time Galvin has put Boston’s election division under receivership. In 2006, after a similar issue with ballots disrupted Election Day, he also appointed a designee to oversee the city’s election process. That year, he said, the issue arose in neighborhoods of Boston where high numbers of people of color live, concerning himself and others about disenfranchisement among communities of color.
Galvin’s office said some of the language in Monday’s order is similar to that used following the 2006 investigation.
A Boston resident himself, Galvin hasn’t said if he’ll be on the ballot next year. In 2022, just prior to winning reelection to his eighth term, Galvin told the Boston Globe that if he won “quite likely, I will not run again.”
(Copyright (c) 2024 State House News Service.