Boston’s beleaguered Elections Division has made one other error heading into subsequent month’s mayoral and metropolis council preliminary elections, by sending a number of ballots to particular person residents who’ve requested to vote early by mail.
Secretary of the Commonwealth Invoice Galvin’s workplace is working with town’s Elections Division — which the state has been overseeing since final fall’s poll mess led to widespread voting delays in Boston — to “determine the source of the issue,” Galvin spokesperson Debra O’Malley stated Friday.
Galvin’s workplace obtained a grievance a couple of voter receiving two ballots on Friday afternoon, O’Malley stated in an announcement to the Herald.
“We are working with the Boston Election Department to determine the source of the issue that caused this voter to receive two ballots,” O’Malley stated. “At this time, we believe the issue to be limited to a very small number of ballots.”
The mayor’s workplace nor the Elections Division responded to requests for remark.
O’Malley emphasised that safeguards are in place to make sure that “no voter will be able to vote more than once.”
“While clerical errors of this nature are certainly regrettable, it is important to understand that there are several procedures and checks in place to prevent anyone from being able to cast more than one ballot,” O’Malley stated.
O’Malley stated that after the Boston Elections Division accepts a poll, the voter who returned it can’t vote once more. Just one poll per voter will likely be counted.
She additionally talked about that “voters who return a ballot are immediately marked on the voter list as having voted.”
“This prevents the voter from voting again, either in person or by mail,” O’Malley stated. “Were a second ballot to be returned, that ballot would be rejected upon receipt.”
Nonetheless, it’s a shaky begin to a closely-watched mayoral preliminary election season for an Elections Division that was positioned into receivership final February after a number of polling locations ran out of ballots in final 12 months’s presidential election, resulting in widespread voting delays and Galvin bashing town for its “incompetence.”
In that occasion, town was supplied sufficient ballots by the state, however polling locations had been nonetheless left brief, resulting in last-minute election night time chaos and a directive from Galvin’s workplace to Boston Police to hurry ballots to these precincts.
Josh Kraft, Mayor Michelle Wu’s principal opponent, stated the newest error from the Elections Division has left him with “serious concerns about the city’s ability” to handle the election.
“The city elections department is already under state receivership on Election Day to ensure we don’t have a repeat of the last municipal election where polling stations ran out of ballots,” Kraft stated in an announcement to the Herald. “Now, with Boston voters receiving more than one absentee ballot, I have serious concerns about the city’s ability to manage anything related to the election and may need even more oversight by the secretary of state.”
Wu, the favored first-term progressive mayor, and Kraft, son of the billionaire New England Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft and former head of his household’s philanthropic arm, are extensively seen as the 2 candidates who will advance previous the Sept. 9 preliminary election. Two different candidates are working.
The complete Metropolis Council can be up for reelection, with the preliminary coming into play for the at-large seats, in addition to these for Districts 1, 2, 4, 5, and seven. District 7 is for the open seat vacated by disgraced ex-Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who is ready to be sentenced subsequent month after her conviction on two federal corruption fees.
The highest eight at-large council candidates and prime two candidates for these contested district council races will advance to the Nov. 4 municipal election.
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