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State looks at putting Boston election department into receivership after Election Day snafus
By adamg on Fri, 11/08/2024 - 9:39am
The Dorchester Reporter reports Secretary of State Bill Galvin is looking at a temporary takeover of the Boston election department after a number of precincts ran out of ballots on Tuesday. The City Council wants answers as well.
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Comments
About those ballots
Good. My kid requested her absentee ballot in September. The city elections department sent it twice to her at college. As of today, she still hasn’t received anything. She spent 10 hours travelling up from NYC and back so she could vote. Whether it’s the election department, USPS or both, it’s unacceptable that there is no way to expedite ballots to people who never received them.
Supposedly the most important
Supposedly the most important election ever, and you very conspicuously don't report the results and won't even mention the name of the president-elect. How did each precinct of Boston vote? As you know, it's available here:
https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2024/11/Unofficial-Ward-...
Oh, I'm so sorry!
Were you waiting for me to tell you who got elected president? A shame there aren't any other Web sites where you could learn the answer. I'll have to remember for next time (assuming there is one).
But thanks for the link to the precinct-by-precinct numbers. I tend to wait for Chris Lovett to analyze them for the Dorchester Reporter, he does a good job at it.
The real shameful part
The real shameful part is that Boston still uses Scantron ballots that have to be preprinted, and that a precinct can run out of.
Actual modern voting systems give voters a ballot that's a totally blank sheet of paper. Voters insert their blank ballot into a touchscreen voting-machine, make their selections on a touchscreen, tap submit, and then the machine prints out their ballot. The voter then walks their printed ballot over to a counting-machine, which is just a hopper with a scanner. That system combines the flexibility of touchscreen systems with a tamper-resistant, chad-resistant, and perfectly legible paper trail, and that systems are already deployed all over the country.
I don't think Massachusetts realizes how backwards its voting process is. Shame on Bill Galvin for not already dragging Massachusetts cities and towns in that modern state during the past twenty years he's been in office.
Multiple problems with what
Multiple problems with what you just said - assorted issues with background and what you say not being the panacea you seem to think:
1. What you describe would involve a lot of printing time at the user level. They couldn't simply print a bar code or QRT with the content. Yes, physically they could - but the print output needs to be something the user can see and verify before it's scanned, so they're printing the pages anyhow. They'll run into issues with running out of ink/toner as easily as running out of pre-printed ballots.
2. How fast would it be to enter selections on one of those touchscreen machines? How many would it take to handle the same throughput of people as the three or four 4-person stands that each precinct has now? How expensive would that be?
3. Massachusetts hasn't advanced on voting tech in 20 years? No, sorry - try again. 24 years ago was my first presidential election after moving to MA, and we were still on the freestanding curtain, lever & paper roll machines then. Scanners came in a little while after that.
This is what I was saying a couple days ago
And everyone here was like paper is better. It’s 2024, time to move on people. If you’re worried about recounts - the results are printed and submitted to a counting machine just like your dinosaur ballots. If you’re worried about hacking/cybersecurity - air gap the machines. If you’re worried about outlets - there’s this new technology called batteries.
For all the money and smarts - MA is ass backwards along with their happy hour laws. Maybe the two are related?
Hacks gotta hack
One time I went into the Election Department off-election-season. Everyone sitting at empty desks with dead eyes doing nothing and loathing the idea of having to get up and help me.
not like the good old days
when the Herald, Traveller, Record American, and Globe were all available to while away the hours, not to mention those ten cent drafties during an extended lunch.
Working for the City must suck ass
Just about everyone yells at you for "not doing your job", and the pay sucks for many of the workers. Look up their salaries. I have not a clue how many of them survive on what they're paid.
You can blame
Mayor Wu for this. She’s lost control of all City agencies and she isn’t even on maternity leave yet.
Let’s see who or what she blamed this on.
You can blame whomever you
You can blame whomever you want for whatever you want, but that doesn't make it justified. It's her administration so of course she bears some responsibility, but the people directly in charge are the people to blame.
Not sure what the "lost control" comment is referencing; I haven't experienced any unusual issues with city government recently, and also in order for her to have lost control she must've had control at some point and most anti-Wu people are loathe to admit that.