Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Galvin: I’m taking over Boston elections

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From today’s Globe:

Secretary of State William F. Galvin declared yesterday that he will seize control of the Boston Election Department because the city has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to conduct fair and smooth elections.

The extraordinary move followed reports that the city ran out of ballots Tuesday at about 30 precincts in Mattapan, Dorchester, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and East Boston, heavily minority areas where voters turned out in droves to support Deval L. Patrick for governor.

Good for Galvin.  This is at least the third serious Boston election fiasco in the last six years.  In 2000, Galvin ordered a citywide recount after noticing that many Boston precincts had recorded 0 votes for all statewide ballot questions.

UPDATE (by David): The Globe has helpfully supplied a chronology of voting problems in Boston, and the city’s responses, going back to 2003.

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Comments

  1. and really is news to me.  I didn’t realize that voting in Boston wasn’t controlled the the SoS. When I heard this story on election night, I blamed Galvin for underestimating the turn-out — again.

  2. I don’t understand why, if they had ample ballots for all voters, did they not distribute enough ballots for each registered voter in a precinct? Were they saving them to sell on Ebay after the election? What value was there in holding them back, and don’t give me the excuse that it was because policy was to only supply ballots for 50% turnout?

  3. What tact

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    “Candidly, I have no desire to micromanage the Boston Election Department,” he said. “It’s about as appealing to me as taking over the Baghdad Election Department. But as this situation made clear, we’re now talking about the rights of voters. And now, we have to deal with it.”

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    p>
    And there are problems going back to 2003? And he waited until there was a shortage of ballots in 2006 to do something? Kind of takes the attention away from his cowardly campaign and the Diebold test machines, huh?

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