The Dorchester Reporter reports Secretary of State Bill Galvin is looking at a temporary takeover of the Boston election department after a number of precincts ran out of ballots on Tuesday. The City Council wants answers as well.
Politics
Both Secretary of State William Galvin and the Boston City Council decided today to investigate how precincts across the city ran out of ballots and numerous other ways voters had obstacles placed in the way of casting their ballots, from one polling place not having any working lights to voters with disabilities being refused access to handicap parking spaces at another. Read more.
WCVB is tracking the numbers for the five statewide ballot questions.
The Boston Election Department has numbers for Boston-specific numbers for both ballot questions and elected offices.
Update: At 7:36 p.m., the Boston Election Department reported that several precincts across the city had run out of ballots. Department said anybody in line at 8 would be allowed to vote.
Around 5:10 p.m., voting came to a halt at ward 18, precinct 10 at the Bates School in Roslindale: Poll workers had run out of ballots to give to voters. Read more.
Boston College's Burns Library posted this photo of US Rep. Tip O'Neill voting in Cambridge in 1955.
The Justice Department is out with list of 86 cities across the country where it will be keep a watch for "compliance with federal voting rights laws," including Everett, Malden, Methuen, Quincy and Salem (as well as Fitchburg, Leominster and Lowell). Read more.
A roving UHub photographer spotted a couple of gaggles of Trump supporters by and above the Expressway at South Bay today - some on the Southampton Street overpass, some along Frontage Road, all just up the road from the pro-Harris billboard at the IBEW hall.
Our photog expressed puzzlement over the activity in a city that is going to give Harris an overwhelming majority: Read more.
Roving UHub photographer Vivian Girard couldn't help but notice this electronic billboard beside the IBEW Local 103 hall as he took his morning walk through Clam Point in Dorchester, near the Southeast Expressway.
The City Council voted 12-1 today to ask the state legislature and the governor to let Boston increase the tax rate on commercial properties to higher levels than normally allowed over three years as a way to protect homeowners from potentially large property tax rates. Read more.
In an emergency Zoom meeting this morning, the City Council agreed to hold a public hearing before voting on a proposal to potentially increase taxes on commercial properties over a three-year period to help cushion the blow on residential property owners from expected large decreases in the value of downtown office buildings because many have higher vacancy rates as a higher percentage of workers continue to stay home in the aftermath of Covid-19. Read more.
The Boston City Council, which usually only convenes on Wednesdays, has scheduled a Zoom meeting for 9:30 a.m. tomorrow to consider asking the state legislature to let Boston increase the commercial-property tax rate over a three-year period. Read more.
People who vote in Brookline this year - whether at early voting locations or at their normal polls on Election Day - won't be getting those hum-drum little oval "I Voted" stickers that voters in certain neighboring communities can expect. In a statement, Town Clerk Ben Kaufman said:
These stickers were made to increase attention to elections and help drive voter engagement. Any chance we have to talk to voters and encourage them to make their voices heard in our elections is an opportunity we will take.
In the year since city police and public-works crews cleared out a growing encampment of homeless people and drug users on Atkinson Street, Mass and Cass has seen a significant decrease in crime and quality-of-life problems, officials from Boston's police and public-health departments told city councilors at a hearing by the council's committee on public safety and criminal justice. Read more.
Scott Van Vorhis reports a possible deal between Mayor Wu and the heads of area businesses and local commercial property owners on a plan that would let Boston temporarily increase taxes on commercial property to minimize the amount city homeowners would see their bills go up because of the Covid-related decline in property values downtown - just by a smaller amount than Wu had originally proposed. The move still needs the approval of the legislature and governor.
A correspondent forwards this video of some Trump supporters in Brookline's Coolidge Corner today, waving, among other things, the flag Iran used until the Shah was overthrown in 1979, as the Orange One blares about how he'll ban vaccinations in schools and suppress transgender athletes, in one of the places least likely to vote for him - in 2020, Biden defeated tfg 87-11 in Brookline.
On Friday, some guy began using a spotlight to show the Trump logo on the town water tower. The town responds it's not putting up with nonsense like that so now town DPW workers have wheeled in a bright white spotlight of their own to try to blank out the Trump message - and the town attorney is getting ready to dun the guy $100 a day until he quits.
Town Administrator Lisa Green says the town is looking at buying a more powerful spotlight: Read more.
Harvard acted to bar outsiders from the Yard after somebody, apparently not affiliated with the university, vandalized the statue and the building with red paint as a protest against Israeli actions in Gaza, the Crimson reports.
City Councilor Liz Breadon (Allston/Brighton) reports that BTD has ajusted traffic lights at several Brighton intersections to automatically signal time for pedestrians to cross between 7 p.m. on Friday and 7 p.m. on Saturday - so that observant Jewish pedestrians don't have to press buttons at the intersections on their sabbath.
The new automated pedestrian-crossing lights start this Friday at: Read more.
Eric Adams and Michelle Wu both won election in 2021. About a year later, the New York Times posed the question of which leadership style Democrats wanted. Given events of the past couple days, you think the Times would ever ask that again? Read more.
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