The City Council today rejected a resolution by Councilors Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) and Erin Murphy (at large) calling on the state to take over the city election department because of Election Day problems that included numerous precincts across the city running out of ballots. Read more.
WBUR reports. Possible opponents include City Councilor Ed Flynn and Josh Kraft.
A couple hundred men, mostly Catholic, mostly from out of town, marched from the Packards Corner Planned Parenthood to the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common today to try to impose their will on a state where abortion remains a right and part of women's health care.
Read more.
A group of out-of-state Catholic men, possibly joined by some local Nazis, have decided to try to shove their will down our throats in a march Saturday morning from the Planned Parenthood clinic at Packards Corner down to the Common, where they will keen and wail and demand us godless heathens just stop all this nonsense immediately. Read more.
CommonWealth Beacon interviewed Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell on her agenda after Jan. 20:
At stake, she said, are the rule of law; reproductive rights; LGBTQIA+ rights; immigrants’ rights; racial justice; environmental justice; health care; education, including student loan programs; gun violence prevention; and federal benefits programs like Social Security and Medicaid.
Chris Lovett analyzes the presidential results across Boston wards - Democrats still won overall, but their numbers were down across the board.
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.
Louijeune calling for a hearing and soon.
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.
Once people in the line outside the Bates got in, they got to stand in another line. Photo by Jessica Burko.
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.
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