State, City Council to investigate Election Day screwups in Boston, from running out of ballots to one polling place going without lights

Both Secretary of State William Galvin and the Boston City Council decided today to investigate how precincts across the city ran out of ballots and numerous other ways voters had obstacles placed in the way of casting their ballots, from one polling place not having any working lights to voters with disabilities being refused access to handicap parking spaces at another.

"Our democracy is increasingly fragile in so many ways" and the last thing Boston needs is another election where people have trouble voting, Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said, calling for an emergency hearing on what went wrong.

"It's unacceptable," Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) said. Flynn went further than his fellow councilors in calling for a federal civil-rights investigation, in particular about the way he said voters with disabilities had problems yesterday.

Flynn, like other councilors, had only praise for poll workers, who they said did the absolute best they could under trying conditions. Instead, he and other councilors said they would grill city Election Department officials on what went wrong.

Flynn said not only had Galvin warned the city on Monday to expect higher than average turnout, as precincts began to run out of ballots, poll workers couldn't get anybody at the Elections Department in City Hall to answer their increasingly frantic calls.

Boston Police officers were eventually dispatched from City Hall with more ballots, starting at 6 p.m., in rush hour. Flynn said new ballots didn't get to one Savin Hill polling station until 7:45 p.m.

City Councilor Liz Breadon, who represents Allston and Brighton, said she got a call from a friend working the polls on Pond Street in Jamaica Plain that she and other poll workers realized by 2 p.m. that they would be running out of ballots.

Her friend, she said, called her around 5 p.m. because they couldn't get anybody at City Hall to answer their calls. "She was frantic, anticipating a big rush" between 5 and 8 p.m., she said.

Councilor Enrique Pepén (Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale) said one precinct at Another Course to College in Hyde Park ran out of ballots. He said he and state Rep. Russell Holmes, later joined by Councilor Julia Mejia, tried to convince voters to stay in line, that more ballots were on the way.

A polling place at Cristo Rey School in Dorchester also ran out of ballots. Councilors said at least one Charlestown polling place also ran out of ballots.

One precinct at the Bates School in Roslindale ran out of ballots shortly after 5 p.m.

But missing ballots weren't the only issue.

Flynn said when he and his wife went to the Cathedral School with some pizza for poll workers, they were shocked to see the place had no lights on. Some enterprising poll workers who lived nearby went home to get table lamps; later in the evening, people pulled out their phones to get some light to read ballots.

Councilor Erin Murphy (at large), said that the day started with a busted tabulating machine at Florian Hall in Dorchester. And she said one constituent called her to let her know that some people with disabled family members were turned away from handicap spots at the Conley School in Roslindale by a principal who said the spaces were contractually available only to teachers during the school day.

Mejia said that at the Frederick Pilot School in Dorchester, confusion reigned because of a large influx of Spanish, Haitian and Cape Verdean Creole-speaking residents without enough poll workers to help them. Some were not allowed to vote without showing licenses, she said.