City agrees to accept elections monitoring

Boston will submit to federal oversight of city elections through 2008 under terms of a deal with the US Department of Justice settling a lawsuit that accused the city and its poll workers of improperly influencing and coercing voters with limited English skills,

The city also agreed to provide additional training for poll workers and to increase the number of poll workers who can communicate in Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese. The city agreed to distribute election information in Chinese and Vietnamese and ask the Legislature for permission to print ballots in those languages. Ballots are regulated by the secretary of state and are currently printed in English and Spanish.

The settlement announced yesterday represents a sharp departure from Mayor Thomas M. Menino's angry rhetoric at the time the Justice Department filed the suit in July, when he vowed to fight it in court. The mayor, who is seeking reelection in less than two months, sought yesterday to portray the terms of the agreement as positive steps for the city.

''The right to vote is a foundation of what makes America the great country that it is today," Menino said. ''Boston is fortunate to have a wealth of diverse residents from across the globe, and these principles will better improve access to voting for all of our residents, especially our new Bostonians."

Community advocates who had charged that some minority voters were disenfranchised at polling places yesterday called the agreement historic.

''The commitment to provide a Chinese and Vietnamese bilingual ballot is something which is unprecedented," said Lydia Lowe, president of the Chinese Progressive Association. ''We still need to look at the fine print, but it seems to me this is a positive resolution. It is unprecedented to see this commitment."

After the Justice Department filed the suit in US District Court July 29, Menino aides decried the suit as having ''not one substantiated allegation" and Menino vowed to mount a defense in court.

But under the settlement released yesterday, the city agreed to virtually all the changes demanded in the original lawsuit, and more. Federal examiners will monitor city elections until 2008, a year longer than the lawsuit requested.

Menino insisted yesterday that he hasn't backed down but, rather, that he decided it was not in the taxpayers' interest to fight a potentially expensive court battle.

''A long, drawn-out court case doesn't do anyone any good," said Menino. ''We were always willing to negotiate a fair and equitable settlement that we could accept. I said I would not sign a consent decree without knowing the facts."

Several other cities have settled similar Justice Department lawsuits by signing consent decrees, which typically acknowledge that problems took place.

Boston's ''memorandum of agreement and settlement" states that the city has admitted no wrongdoing.

The agreement doesn't specify the number of federal examiners that will monitor the elections or where they will be stationed. City officials said the examiners are to report any problems directly to the city.

Menino said the presence of federal examiners will ''lift any cloud of suspicion away.

''Let a third party look at it; I'm not afraid at all," he said. ''By having ballots printed in several different languages, we're giving the diverse people of our city the opportunity to vote."

Justice Department lawyers praised the city for settling the case in a ''constructive and forward-looking manner."

''This settlement represents a significant step toward ensuring that all eligible citizens can exercise their right to vote on election day," said Bradley J. Schlozman, acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division.

Department spokesman Eric Holland said settling such a suit is not unusual, nor is it unusual for a defendant to agree to federal monitoring of elections.

Under the 20-page agreement, the city has agreed to assign bilingual poll workers to help Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese voters with limited ability to speak English.

The bilingual poll workers are to be stationed in areas with high concentrations of ethnic voters, as determined by census data. In addition, the city will have translators on call, who will travel to the polls on election day to help any voters who are having problems, according to the agreement.

Given the short time before a preliminary city election Sept. 27, the city must only ''make best efforts" to recruit, hire, and train additional bilingual poll workers and post multilingual signs at polling places.

Because ballots are printed by the secretary of state, city officials must file a home rule petition, which must then be approved by the City Council and the Legislature and be signed by the governor. If the home rule petition is not passed in time for the September 2006 elections, the city agreed to ask a federal court judge to order the translated ballots.

In the November elections, the city will provide sample ballots in Chinese and Vietnamese inside each voting booth.

The city has also agreed to hire an elections language coordinator to lead training of poll workers and take charge of translation services during elections.

In addition, the city agreed to hire three full-time employees to aid the language coordinator.

The Mayor's Advisory Task Force, which is reviewing the election department and its practices, will stay in place to review the city's performance under the agreement.

''We have organized a comprehensive review of all aspects of the Election Department, ranging from polling locations to voter education to voter access," said Kevin Peterson, the panel's chairman, who is also director of the New Democracy Coalition, a minority voting rights group.

''There were major concerns coming out of the minority community that had validity," he said. ''The city strove to do what it could to respond."

The panel will turn over its report to the mayor on Dec. 15, he said.

''We expect it to be comprehensive and critical, but fair," Peterson said.

Ralph Ranalli and Donovan Slack of the Globe staff contributed to this report.