Florichusetts

Ballot questions triggered a citywide recount in Boston, and problems plagued the polls in minority neighborhoods. Maybe Palm Beach isn't the only place that needs voting reform.

by Dorie Clark

Many of Boston's black legislators predicted that November's turnout would be big. "We knew everyone was coming to the polls, because we had too much to lose," says Roxbury's State Representative Gloria Fox. But some people who came lost anyway.

The issues, coupled with an unprecedented effort to get minority voters to the polls, all but ensured high turnout. Beginning in May, Boston Vote, a community group that encourages political participation, organized volunteers from a variety of organizations to knock on doors in Uphams Corner, Mattapan Square, Hyde Square, Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, and Dudley Square. The Saturday before the election, 150 volunteers knocked on 7000 doors in Mattapan and Roxbury. The Sunday before the election, the organization hit all the churches on Blue Hill Avenue with a get-out-the-vote message, and the following day they called 3200 people reminding them to vote. All this occurred, of course, within a larger national context that saw a massive effort to get out the African-American vote for Vice-President Al Gore.

"We talked about ballot initiatives, that the election was going to be on Tuesday, and to be ready," says program director Malia Lazu. Their efforts paid off. Turnout increased in Roxbury's Ward 12 by 16 percent. In Mattapan's Ward 18, turnout increased by between 18 and 23 percent.

But snafus on Election Day may have soured voter confidence enough to put those gains at risk. Nearly 30,000 ballots were improperly tabulated, prompting Secretary of State Bill Galvin to order a citywide recount. And poll workers, some allege, were unprepared for the onslaught of voters from minority neighborhoods. Illegal one-minute time limits were reportedly placed on voters in some precincts in order to hurry lines along, and large numbers of voters were turned away from the polls because workers couldn't confirm registration lists with City Hall. Given the Florida tumult, some observers are asking what sort of impact these problems will have on Bostonians who voted this year for the first time in years -- or the first time ever.

---

Boston election officials knew they were in trouble the day after the election. Checking the vote counts performed the night before, they found precinct upon precinct where not one person was reported to have voted on the ballot questions, despite a high citywide turnout (72.3 percent of registered voters came to the polls). Boston Election Commission chairwoman Nancy Lo says the problem -- which affected 30,000 ballots -- was caused by human error.

The city's 60-year-old voting machines -- which flummoxed poll workers in 20 percent of the city's precincts -- were not easy to decode. "Because of recent court rulings, the summaries of the [ballot] questions have to be printed on the machines," Lo explains. The machines were not designed for this, and the vote tallies ended up in numbered columns that didn't correspond with the ballot-question numbers.

Lo insists the citywide recount was not a big deal. "It took a day and a half," she says. "We opened the back of the machines and -- voil[[daggerdbl]]! -- the numbers were there." But it's logical to ask whether it's time to retire the city's voting machines. After all, the company that made them is no longer in business, and the city has been keeping the system afloat by purchasing surplus machines from other communities -- an increasingly impractical option as the instruments wear down.

In fact, Galvin announced Friday that he would ask the state legislature for loans to allow local communities to upgrade their voting machines. Optical-scanner systems, considered the most reliable, are available in nearly three-quarters of Massachusetts communities. (Such systems would make Florida-like second-guessing unnecessary because voters connect two arrows next to a candidate's name or fill in a circle with a black marker. With this technique the voter's intention is usually very clear, even if machines jam and a hand count becomes necessary.)

Statewide, it could cost millions of dollars to replace voting machines. (It cost $3 million to replace punch-card machines in just 36 communities, and that was four years ago.) But Galvin says it's worth it: "As we've seen with the Florida experience and the problems four years ago [when Philip Johnston's apparent victory over William Delahunt in the 10th Congressional District was overturned by a ballot recount], the most important thing is for voters to be sure that their votes are counted."

But for many in Boston's minority communities, a more pressing concern is being allowed to cast ballots in the first place. Activists charge that the Boston Election Commission was not ready for November's large minority turnout -- despite a meeting days before the election with a group of black lawmakers (including Senator Dianne Wilkerson, State Representatives Gloria Fox and Marie St. Fleur, and a representative from City Councilor Chuck Turner's office) who warned city officials that polls would be busy. "The city was unprepared for the large voter turnout that came in the communities of color," says Leonard Alkins, Boston-chapter president of the NAACP. "They made an assumption based on previous years that we would not vote -- an assumption they had no right to make -- and consequently it has created a number of serious problems."

Wilkerson, a Roxbury Democrat, won't rule out racial bias as a factor in the voting problems. She suspects, however, that the problems (which affected an estimated 200 people in her district) stemmed more from administrative incompetence. "It doesn't make anyone feel any better when they were denied the right to vote because of ineptitude rather than some insidious goal," she says. Indeed, while many Boston voters experienced some degree of hassle on Election Day, it seems that most of the serious allegations -- which include being turned away from the polls -- have come from minority communities.

The disparity may be more a matter of demographics than of racism. The traditionally low voter turnout in black and Latino neighborhoods, coupled with what Malia Lazu of Boston Vote speculates is a resistance to filling out government surveys, caused 21,000 voters -- an unusually high number -- to appear on the "inactive" list. In order to vote, those on the list were required to present two forms of identification at the polling place, a procedure that may have confused poll workers.

This would have been less of a problem if turnout hadn't been so strong. Even Lo admits that the crush at the polls caused difficulties: "Right now, I speculate that a lot of the problems we're hearing about are due to a lot of activity on Election Day, high turnout." She says the city was prepared, but it's inherently more difficult to manage a presidential election with a 72 percent turnout than, say, the September primary, which drew only eight percent of voters. The problems were compounded when poll workers couldn't get through to the election commission to verify the voter list. Says Wilkerson, "Poll workers would call City Hall, give the phone to the voter, and the line would be busy. They'd say, `Sorry, can't help you.' "

---

These difficulties were the last thing the Boston Election Commission wanted. This was the first major election since three agency workers, including the former chairman, departed last year after charges of financial impropriety. Nancy Lo has worked hard to change the organizational culture of the commission in the year since her appointment. "You had whole divisions signing in in the morning, and leaving for the day, and doing private [for-profit] business," she says. Now I say, `You sign in, you stay here for the day, and you work.' Some people have a hard time with that."

But critics say the agency still suffers from systemic problems. Senator Wilkerson charges that the commission is unwilling to accept criticism and to become more user-friendly. "The response of the election commission has been incredibly defensive," she says. "I just have this feeling that, at least from the election department, the response has not been one that supports the notion that we're in this together" to make Election Day procedures work. "I'm not talking about bending the rules," she adds. "I'm talking about letting people know what the rules are so we're on the same page."

To meet this week's filing deadline, a slew of bills were just introduced on Beacon Hill to correct the problems. Representative Fox says she's signed on to half a dozen bills, most of which aim to strengthen enforcement of laws already on the books. The bills seek to clarify procedures for designating voters "inactive," advocate uniformity in cross-checking voters with other city lists, and look into what Fox describes as the "breakdown" of motor-voter registration. (Some people who thought they were registered to vote via the Registry of Motor Vehicles were not, which appears to have been a problem nationwide.)

Legislators also hope to work with the election commission to modify administrative policies. Lo says she's receptive, and notes that previous improvements, such as the advent of mail-in registration and the motor-voter law, have simplified the procedure. She's also planning to redraw precincts soon, and hopes to balance out resources so that high-turnout areas aren't crippled by long lines.

It's unclear how much money Secretary of State Galvin's proposal and the myriad State House bills will cost, and it's uncertain how much support they ultimately will garner. But Galvin, Wilkerson, and others agree that with the continuing public indignation over voting irregularities in Florida, the time is right to pursue their reforms. Indeed, some activists are talking about making even broader changes to the system. Some suggest that same-day voter registration would prevent the hassles caused by the inactive-voter list and the confusion surrounding voters who have moved. Others advocate permitting people to vote near their places of work, on days other than Tuesday, or over the Internet.

Perhaps the most likely change in the short term is the introduction of ATM-style voting machines. Lo supports them, though they have not yet been approved by the Secretary of State's Office. She's unsure whether Boston will take advantage of Galvin's proposed loans to purchase optical-scanner equipment; she thinks the city may prefer instead to wait for the touch-screen machines. Either way, a different type of machine would go a long way toward addressing concerns about accurate counts. New machines could also make the process less confusing: voters who don't speak English, for instance, could simply punch up a translation on screen. And a better-administered motor-voter law could make voters' lives easier, too.

In the meantime, the proposed election-reform measures will work their way through the state legislature, and a special counsel appointed by Galvin will investigate the NAACP's claims. The changes they bring about may make voting a more pleasant experience, but activists and politicians from minority neighborhoods are fearful. "There might be people who just don't want to come out and vote again," says Fox. Undaunted, she and her colleagues will continue to hammer home their message. "Money goes to the places that vote the most," she says. "We're telling people, `Do not be dismayed, come back again for the municipal election.' "

Dorie Clark can be reached at dclark[a]phx.com.