State says it will take control of city voting

Secretary of State William F. Galvin declared yesterday that he will seize control of the Boston Election Department because the city has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to conduct fair and smooth elections.

The extraordinary move followed reports that the city ran out of ballots Tuesday at about 30 precincts in Mattapan, Dorchester, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and East Boston, heavily minority areas where voters turned out in droves to support Deval L. Patrick for governor.

City officials acknowledged they have a policy of distributing only enough ballots for 50 percent of registered voters at each polling place and then delivering more ballots from City Hall as they are needed.

Officials said the longstanding practice saves time and effort. There had been little reason to change it, they said, because ballots have not run out in the past. But the policy apparently resulted in shortages Tuesday night, when Election Department drivers got stuck in traffic and the city was forced to speed surplus ballots to the polls in police cruisers.

After huddling with Galvin at City Hall yesterday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he would hire a consultant to review the city's election procedures and recommend changes. But Galvin said the shortages pointed to fundamental problems in the management and policies of the Boston Election Department that require more drastic action.

"There has been a pattern of conduct here that is just unacceptable," Galvin said in an interview. "This is not simply about an error being made. There's been a history of errors, and yesterday's errors were serious. There was a failure of management."

Galvin said he will begin working out plans for a takeover in coming days. His options include putting representatives from his office in City Hall who would supervise election operations or seeking a court-appointed receiver to oversee the vote . It was unclear how long Galvin would retain control of the department or under what conditions he would return it to the city.

"Candidly, I have no desire to micromanage the Boston Election Department," he said. "It's about as appealing to me as taking over the Baghdad Election Department. But as this situation made clear, we're now talking about the rights of voters. And now, we have to deal with it."

Menino said that the city has been told of at least 27 precincts where there were problems and that his aides planned to contact precinct wardens to conduct a full count. A Globe tally found 32, based on accounts from voters, elected officials, and campaign volunteers.

As news of the shortages spread yesterday, there was fresh outrage in the city's minority communities, where Patrick's candidacy had sparked excitement. Voter turnout in Roxbury, for example, surged by 20 percent over the gubernatorial election in 2002. But the ballot problems fed suspicions by some voters in those neighborhoods that the political establishment considered them second-class citizens. Yesterday, two city councilors, Charles C. Yancey and Felix Arroyo, called for hearings to expose the management failures that caused the shortages.

"The sad thing is there are many people in the city of Boston who feel alienated and feel cynical about the political process and harbor the suspicion that there may be some nefarious forces that were trying to hurt Deval Patrick," Yancey said. "We're not going to rely on the administration solely policing itself. In this case, we're going to get some answers right from the people involved."

Menino, who has prided himself on good relationships with Boston's minority communities, found himself on the defensive yesterday. He said he was sorry that the city had failed to provide enough ballots.

"I apologize for that," Menino said. "It should not have happened."

Election officials -- including Election Commissioner Geraldine Cuddyer and Michael Galvin, chief of Basic Services and the official who oversees the election department -- did not speak to reporters yesterday. The 24-employee Election Department has been the target of severe criticism in recent years and has undergone several leadership changes. In 2004, Menino appointed Cuddyer, former chief of his 24-hour constituent hotline, even though she had no experience overseeing elections. Galvin is no relation to the secretary of state.

Voters and poll workers described scenes of chaos on Tuesday as ballots ran out and voters grew angry. One poll worker, in an e-mail to the Globe, said election workers had trouble getting through on busy phone lines to Election Department officials at City Hall to request more ballots.

Bruce Bolling, a former city councilor, said that on Tuesday he was at Boston Latin Academy in Roxbury, which had no ballots for more than an hour. About 100 people waited in line to vote.

"People were really upset," he said. "I assured people they would be able to vote, ballots were on their way. . . . People were really upset because, as you can imagine, many wanted to support Deval Patrick and exercise their constitutional right. People just couldn't understand this. How do you not have enough ballots?"

Menino said he was surprised and "absolutely angry, very angry" when he learned of problems Tuesday evening. "It was a good Election Day for us until about a quarter of 6," he said.

Menino said the policy of giving each precinct enough ballots for half of its registered voters has been in place "since I was a child."

William Galvin said his action yesterday was the first such move in Massachusetts since the mid-1980s, when Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly took control of city elections to resolve problems with voting lists.

Menino and Galvin said they hope to work cooperatively to resolve the problems. Galvin said he was not sure of the remedy.

"It's going to require more hands-on management and supervision rather than going down a checklist of to-do things," Galvin said, "because we already did that and it obviously didn't work."

Donovan Slack of the Globe staff contributed to this report.