Bruce is not surprised that Boston elections officials blew it in yet another election, this time by failing to provide enough ballots at a number of polling places:

... How tough a job is this?

You've got a list of registered voters in front of you. Count the names on the list. Get that number of blank ballots. We're talking about the kind of math that baffles first-graders.

And, Boston election officials, apparently. ...

Photographic evidence now proves that three Billionaires for Bush took off their bling in order to infiltrate two 'Victory' parties on Election Night (well, one "Victory" party and one Victory Party!).

We even met a "Prisoner for Patrick", darling! The experience was most enlightening.

Toodles!

Mike Mennonno notes that now that the national press has discovered Our Deval, suddenly his race is mentioned all the time:

... If Deval himself was "blacker," or had run a "blacker" campaign — fear of his "blackness" is what Healey was trying to force into white voters' consciousness with her rape ads--what do you think would have been the outcome? He would likely still have won, but by a slimmer margin. He didn't play into Healey's race-baiting, and that turned out to be the best thing for his campaign. But the undercurrents of racial fear and loathing Healey tried to exploit do deserve real and systematic examination. Just because we voted in a black governor doesn't mean that all the sudden everything's hunky-dory when it comes to race in Massachusetts. ...

OK, so Secretary of State Bill Galvin vows to take over the Boston elections department because of that ballot-shortage issue the other night. Andy at Mass. Revolution Now wonders where the Dark Prince was before the election - when Boston was already under federal investigation on various election issues:

... Bill Galvin has been in charge of voting supervision in this state for something like 12 years and only now is he going to get serious about looking out for voters?

So what does anyone think we can expect from Billy? Well his latest idea has been bringing in the electronic disaster machines manufactured by Diebold. I feel so safe having Billy on the job now. ...

Actually, this isn't the first time Galvin has yelled at Boston elections officials, and Tuesday's ballot shortage might just be the proverbial straw.

The Globe's Political Intelligence reports that Galvin "issued a scathing report" on the city's election performance back in 2003. And you'll recall the whole Dianne Wilkerson/Sonia Chang-Diaz mess, in which the city elections department failed to even count any votes in several precincts this past September.

Oh, sure, there are those Gloomy Gusses who are barricading their doors against the imminent onslaught of rapists and who fret their taxes will go up so high they won't be able to afford that Porsche they have their eye on. But for most Boston bloggers with an opinion on the elections, it's still party time.

Michael Femia writes that yesterday, he couldn't decide which day was better: Yesterday or Oct. 27, 2004. In either case:

In an exclusive interview, Mihos could only say: Woof!

How you're feeling right now depends, of course, on which way you voted yesterday. A round-up of local bloggers on the national results (and Rummy, too!):

Ian tended a bar at the party:

... We were set up in, effectively, the overflow room. There was a big room with balconies and big auditorium setup stuff where all the speeches happened, and our room was right next to it, with giant television screens, tables, and bars. It never got crowded enough for us to get busy, unfortunately. Busy is fun; slow is less fun. Also, busy is more money.

Our bar had four bartenders and two cash registers at it, and one barback assigned.

We had something I'd never encountered before. Female barbacks. ...

Mass Marrier analyzes the defeat of the three statewide ballot questions; he says 2 and 3 were just too confusing for most people. As for 1:

... Voters bought into Chicken Little-style claims of bodies on the highways and drunken teens in an updated version of Reefer Madness. ...

Talonvaki was glad to see Question 1 defeated, but for a different reason:

... The small liquor stores have something the supermarkets don't have: character. I have grown to love the local packies. The one near my house, where I've been going for 6½ years, and they know me (the woman remembers when I moved in!), the shop on Mass Ave., where until recently Dixie the cat lived, the shop in Southie with the autographed photo of Bobby Orr in midair (and a story to go with it), the store across from the Star Market on Beacon in Somerville that's a shrine to firefighters ... every time I go into one, it's not just to get booze, it's to connect with the neighbourhood and have a conversation.

You can't do that in the supermarket. And now that you can buy liquor on Sundays, there's really no need to. ...

Same for Onward Charles:

... I live in Mission Hill, so the booze runs plentiful, and already having a plethora of liquor stores and bars doesn't really elicit a reaction of "omfg we need Stop & Shop to have crap wine too!" The scare was that bringing wine and beer to convenience stores would have been big trouble for little mom n' pop shops.

Ed. note: You can buy wine in a few supermarkets; if you really want to pick up some wine with your Stouffer's, try Omni Foods on Rte. 9 in Chestnut Hill. Also, does anybody know if Melvin Drugs on Comm. Ave. in Brighton still sells hip-flask bottles of hard liquor?

Transcript of Patrick's victory speech.

Matt: Deval. Thanks for being my new Governor.

Sharon Gartenberg: Deval Patrick's Resounding Victory: A Vote for Community:

Voters in Massachusetts have given our overwhelming support to a governor-elect who stresses sense of community and the need to care about each other's dreams and aspirations as well as our own. It's a message we've clearly been hungering for after the bitter, negative, partisan politics that Karl Rove and the Bush administration have brought to the national arena these past six years. ...

Now the hard work begins, Adam Reilly writes: