State opens investigation into Boston's ballot shortages on Election Day

After some polling stations in Boston ran out of ballots on a busy Election Day, Secretary of State William Galvin launched an investigation into the city's handling of this year's election, his office announced Wednesday.

"Voters were subjected to unreasonable and unnecessary delays in exercising their franchise," Galvin wrote in a letter to Boston Election Commission Chair Eneida Tavares on Wednesday. "This is unacceptable and contravenes the most fundamental principles of our democratic process."

According to Galvin, the city of Boston did not provide enough ballots to polling stations even though the secretary's office printed and delivered 766,200 of them in early October. Galvin said his office also sent a reminder memo to all election officials Monday with instructions for properly supplying polling stations, contacting precincts to check on ballot supply and what to do when ballots are running low.

At a press conference Wednesday, Galvin said the city of Boston showed poor planning, and didn't properly communicate or respond to poll workers and his office when they tried to reach out. "You cannot operate an election without answering the phone in the election department," Galvin said. "Yet that's what they tried to do yesterday."

He said his office will weigh appointing a receiver to take over management of the Boston Elections Commission. Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn called for a "city, state, and federal investigation."

Precincts in Hyde Park, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury and Dorchester were impacted by the ballot shortages Tuesday evening. Galvin said he thinks five to 10 polling stations were impacted in these areas, "but we're not quite sure."

Additional ballots were eventually sent to those locations after Galvin ordered the city to do so, with the help of a police escort. Voters who couldn't wait for the ballots to show up were able to provide phone numbers to election workers so they could be contacted to return last night. Residents in line by 8 p.m. could still vote.

"We captured most of the people who wanted to vote and surely since we did all this in the five to six o'clock hour, that gave an additional two hours for people to return to their polls," Galvin said.

Joseph DeDominici of Roslindale said he tried three times to vote at Phineas Bates Elementary School. He first arrived at 5:30 p.m., then went home when he learned they were out of ballots. An hour later, the line was longer and there were still no ballots, he said. He finally got to vote after returning at 7:45 p.m.

"They didn't run out of 'I voted' stickers," DeDominici said. "They had plenty of stickers but they didn't have plenty of ballots."

The city of Boston posted an apology to voters Tuesday evening, saying: "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."

Voters who were impacted by the ballot shortages also indicated that they were unable to contact the Boston Elections Commission, according to Galvin.

"This indicates that the City did not originally deliver an appropriate supply of ballots to precincts in Boston, did not have adequate communication channels with the polling places, and had no plan to deliver additional ballots as needed, and in a timely manner," Galvin wrote in his letter.

Even Boston’s 311 app and phone line, which residents use to file complaints with the city, received alerts from voters pleading for help. All show they were referred to the city’s elections department: “Constituent states the polling location has sent a few people away and told them to come back before 8 p.m. because they have no paper ballots. Constituent is very upset that people are being sent away," one complaint reviewed by WBUR said.

At another polling location, 612 Metropolitan Ave. in Hyde Park, a complaint said, “Constituent states the location has run out of paper ballots and the poll workers do not know timeline when they will get more." In Jamaica Plain, another person reported, “Ward 19, precinct 5 is out of ballots at 5:20 p.m.! When are they coming??!!”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Wednesday that the city is going to do its own "full debrief and investigation" into what happened. An initial review by the city has pointed to a problem with the formula used to schedule out ballot deliveries to precincts.

"It's standard procedure where there's a batch of ballots that is provided to the city, and then the city bases its own turnout predictions on past experience with this similar type of election, and then delivers those ballots to the polling locations based on that," Wu said.

"It is completely unacceptable for people to have to wait for significant periods of time without ballot access," Wu said. "On the one hand, having high turnout is a great problem to have, but we need to make sure that we are on top of all those issues because protecting access to the ballot is the most fundamental part of our democracy."

Eneida Tavares, commissioner of the Boston Elections Department, in a statement said the city has begun a "full audit" into the delays from ballot shortages and will cooperate with Galvin's probe.

Galvin said his investigation will look into the practices and procedures of the Boston elections department leading up to and including Election Day. The secretary's office said it has the authority to investigate complaints and allegations of violations of election laws by election officials.

Galvin said the ballot issues weren't deliberate, but showed "incompetence." This was a "self-inflicted wound. And the wounded are the voters," he said.

With reporting from WBUR's Simón Rios.