City scrambles to deliver ballots as voters wait

Boston polling stations, overwhelmed by voters turning out in almost record-breaking numbers, ran out of ballots during a peak voting period yesterday, forcing the city to speed replacement ballots to polls in police cruisers, and sparking anger from voters who waited in line, in some cases for hours, or walked away in disgust.

City officials downplayed the problem, saying that they had acted quickly to correct it, and that everyone who wanted to vote was accommodated. But in minority neighborhoods, some residents said the city cared little for their votes.

It was the latest embarrassment for Boston's election department after mishaps dating to 2003, when problems at the polls led the Justice Department to put the city under federal supervision.

City officials would not say how many polling places were affected, but the problem appeared to be widespread, with voters in Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roxbury and Dorchester saying that ballots had run out at their polling places.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin, whose office oversees elections in the state, said he had to step in to force Boston to send police cruisers carrying ballots after other election department couriers got mired in traffic. Saying the Boston Elections Department has failed voters too many times, he threatened to take over management of city elections.

"It is once again another management failure by the Boston election department," Galvin said. "I'm at the point where my patience is exhausted."

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said late last night that he plans to investigate Tuesday's events. "Any errors by city elections officials will not be tolerated," said a Menino spokeswoman, Jennifer Mehigan .

In an election that presented voters with the chance to elect the state's first black governor, minority voters came out in large numbers. Galvin projected turnout statewide at around 55 to 60 percent -- higher than in any non presidential election year since 1990, when 2.4 million cast votes. With 99 percent of votes in the city counted last night, 154,000 residents had voted. In 1990, 159,889 Bostonians voted.

Minority voting advocates voiced outrage yesterday.

"It's a disgrace, to democracy, to the whole system," said David Ortiz, project director for the Civic Engagement Initiative, which has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into boosting turnout in Boston's minority precincts. "This is beyond turnout. It's a bureaucratic screw-up. They did a lousy job preparing, and they didn't pay attention to the details."

Ortiz said that the candidacy of Deval L. Patrick and voter mobilization efforts had boosted turnout in minority neighborhoods well beyond expectations. The city was clearly unprepared for the surges among those residents, he said.

At Boston Latin Academy in Roxbury, there were no ballots from 5:45 p.m. to 7:45 p.m., said State Representative Gloria Fox, who went to the polling place after hearing about the problems.

She said: "Some people couldn't wait in the cold. . . . This is appalling that this could happen in 2006, with one of the most publicized races in the country."

"This is almost intentional," she said. "How could you not have enough ballots?"

Just before the polls were supposed to close, at about five minutes to 8 p.m., a police cruiser arrived with lights flashing and a uniformed officer with a thick stack of ballots under his arm came into the polling station. At about 8:20, there were still 50 inside waiting to vote, and some were clearly angry.

"This is just plain crooked," one voter shouted.

At the Lucy Stone School in Dorchester, Martha Adams was among the 40 or so people who waited for two hours to cast a vote. Adams, 49, had left dinner on the stove thinking voting would only take a few minutes.

"I sat there on that bench until I got numb," said Adams, of Dorchester. "I was with Mr. King when he got beat down in Chicago. I was not going home without a vote."

Last year, the US Justice Department sued the city, alleging that election workers improperly influenced and coerced Hispanic and Asian-American voters with limited English skills in the 2003 municipal election. City officials agreed to federal oversight of elections through 2008.

Dianne Wilkerson, who won her seat handily yesterday, was incensed at the new turmoil. "This is outrageous," she said.

Scott Allen, Maria Cramer, Michael Levenson and Adrienne P. Samuels of the Globe Staff and Globe correspondent April Simpson contributed.