Polling problems in Boston

Adam Rosi-Kessel reports on problems with the optical-scan ballots at his polling place in Roslindale:

When I voted this morning, however, the machines were not feeding the ballots. Instead, the poll workers were piling the ballots up on top of the machine, apparently to be fed into the machine when they figured out how to get it to work. When I left, they seemed to have gotten to the point of triple-checking whether the machine was plugged in.

I felt a bit uneasy leaving my secret ballot in a big open pile. It was somewhat reassuring that a police officer seemed to be in charge of watching the ballots, but I still will always have a slight reservation as to whether or not my vote was actually counted. ...

Mike Mennonno reports from Dorchester:

... My roommate just went to vote, and reports that the scanner in use at our polling place is out of order.

The way it works is you fill out your ballot by hand and then they stick it in a machine that sucks it up and shreds--er, I mean, scans it. But the machine isn't working. ...

Kim Atkins reports minor shennanigans, such as campaign workers going into polls with voters and Samiyah Diaz backers in JP telling voters NARAL endorsed her when it really endorsed her opponent, state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson.