State to mail out 4.5 million absentee-ballot applications next week

Boston has already been experiencing a shortage of poll workers on Election Day as it is. It is a long day from 6 AM to about 9 PM with two breaks for lunch and dinner, but if you have a busy precinct, it is possible one fo those meal breaks may not make sense, especially for the senior officers.

One point... I cannot speak for every city and town but Boston's poll workers are paid but it averages out to about minimum wage. Annual re-training in law, policy, procedure, and the machinery is also required and you get an additional $20 for attending. The class runs about 3 hours.

Early voting in MA has many centralized locations that accommodates the whole city, whereas neighborhood polling places on Election Day are limited to the neighborhood in question. It's usually about 2000 or so voters in each neighborhood cluster.but it is rare 100% of those actually vote.

Mail in ballots are already in use for the so-called "Absentee voters." The rules on that were relaxed quite some time back so we've actually always had mail-in voting but you had to request it. The problem will be in how the ballots are managed. usually, early vote ballots and absentee ballots are stored securely and must be run through a voting tally machine at the neighborhood precinct as if the person was there in person. The senior officials on site are charged with handling that.

The main problem will be that the volume of ballots will require additional people in the field to process the ballots and as noted there is already a shortage, and we have not even counted those who will bow out due to COVID-19.

The second problem will be people that mis-mark the ballots. There is no do-over for mailed in ballots. If you are on site and make a mistake you get up to 3 chances to get it right. When a ballot is mis-marked and the tally machine refuses it, the election officials on site have to hand tally the ballot. If there are "over marks," meaning the voter marked too many people for a specific race, the election official cannot do anything but set aside the ballot and let the election department try to figure it out. The result is no one gets voted for and the errors cannot be fixed after the fact due to the anonymity of the vote.

So voting in person is always better when and where possible. Mistakes can be addressed. With mail-in and absentees, and even with early voting, that option is gone.

We will have to see how this plays out. It's new territory.