Boston's top election officials lack experience
No background and little formal training left Hub vulnerable to some big mistakes
The top officials running Boston's Election Department, the commissioner and her supervisor, came to their jobs with little or no experience running elections and have had only minimal training since.
They have occasionally received training sessions from state election regulators, city officials said. But Election Commissioner Geraldine Cuddyer's main experience before taking the elections job in August 2004 was running the city's 24-hour hotline. Her supervisor, Chief of Public Property Michael Galvin, was a manager at a telephone company for 24 years before Mayor Thomas M. Menino, a childhood friend, appointed him to a Cabinet position that oversees the Election Department and several other departments.
With no background in planning or executing elections and little formal outside training in the latest methods used by big-city election departments, Boston officials were bound to make major mistakes, specialists said.
"There are so many failure points in elections, when things can go wrong, and you need to know what others are doing about it," said R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center and National Association of Election Officials, based in Houston. "You need to look at your process. But people in elections, if they don't have this kind of training, tend to do what they've always done."
City officials, including Menino, have acknowledged that an Election Department policy of distributing to each precinct only enough ballots for half the number of registered voters caused about 30 polling places to run out of ballots for Tuesday's election.
With voter turnout at 56 percent citywide, police cruisers had to speed ballots from City Hall to replenish supplies after Election Department runners got stuck in rush-hour traffic. Many voters had to wait in long lines, and some left without casting ballots.
Menino, who said he has spoken with an election consultant he hopes to hire next week to review election management in the city, said there are no job requirements for overseeing city elections, aside from being able to read state and local laws.
"Election procedures are set in the statute," Menino said. "You don't have to be a person who got a PhD from Harvard, that's for sure."
In addition to Cuddyer, two other members of the Boston Election Commission, Michael Chinetti and Nancy Hairston, are longtime city employees.
Chinetti was working in the city's Consumer Affairs and Licensing department when he was appointed to the commission in 2000. Hairston worked in Consumer Affairs and Licensing for 27 years and then was assistant registrar of voters in the Election Department for six years befor being appointed to the Election Commission in 2001.
The primary duties of the election commission are to register voters, ensure that equipment is operating properly, and count the ballots. They also provide an annual jury list to the state.
Cuddyer, the commissioner, made $92,250 last year, according to city payroll records. Chinetti and Hairston made $47,277. A fourth seat on the commission is currently vacant. Galvin made $128,149 last year.
Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who is making plans to oversee the Boston Election Department, said yesterday that it's important that people with experience be in charge.
"There has to be someone there, whatever their title is, who has the authority and has extensive election experience," he said.
Boston's Election Department has also been grappling with staff and budget cuts in recent years, which employees say has left the department with little institutional memory.
Meanwhile, an analysis of Tuesday's voting turnout released yesterday by MassVOTE, showed that Boston neighborhoods with mostly white residents turned out in fewer numbers than four years ago, while neighborhoods with a majority of blacks, Asians, or Hispanics turned out in much higher numbers.
The numbers are a reflection of the excitement in communities of color generated by Deval L. Patrick's candidacy, intense get-out-the-vote efforts and a rapidly changing political landscape in Boston, MassVOTE analysts said.
Michael Levenson of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com, and Matt Viser at maviser@globe.com. 