Three Cards, One at a Time: Boston's Election Department Lays Out How Tuesday Works, and Why Some Ballots Will Not Be in the Election-Night Count

Boston voters who head to the polls Tuesday will be handed a ballot that is three double-sided cards long, and the city's Election Department is asking them to slow down at the very end of the process: insert each card into the tabulator separately and wait for the screen to say "system ready" before feeding the next one or walking away.

That instruction is one of several in the department's pre-election notice, last updated Oct. 29, that together describe how a long-ballot election will run in the city's 275 precincts, and how results will come in after the polls close at 8 p.m.

The ballot length comes from the statewide races and from nine statewide ballot questions, the most on a Massachusetts ballot in decades. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin told WBUR last week that ballots are at least two cards in every community and up to four in some, and that the questions are likely to make Election Day a "slower process." His office said it could also mean unofficial results are reported later than usual, WBUR reported.

The Election Department mailed all 69,759 requested vote-by-mail and absentee ballots. As of Sunday, Oct. 25, it had received 29,269 of them back. Another 10,083 voters had cast ballots at in-person early voting sites as of Monday, Oct. 26, for a combined 39,352 ballots received, according to the department.

Those figures were counted before the busiest final days of early voting, which ended statewide on Friday, Oct. 30. The city has not published an updated total on the notice. By that measure, 39,352 ballots amounts to about 8.9 percent of Boston's 443,178 registered voters, a share that will have grown in the last days of early voting. Statewide, the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office reported 1,070,364 ballots already cast as of 4 p.m. Oct. 30, or 20.5 percent of registered voters, according to South Coast 360's report on the office's figures.

Mail ballots: where they can and cannot go

Voters who still hold a mail ballot cannot drop it off at a polling place on Tuesday, the department said. Instead, they can use any of the city's 22 drop boxes, which accept ballots until 8 p.m. Tuesday, or deliver the ballot in person to the Election Department at City Hall. Ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 count if they reach the department by 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 6.

The department also recommends checking the state's "Track My Ballot" system. If it shows no movement on a ballot a voter mailed, the department advises that voter to plan to vote in person at their assigned precinct.

Since Oct. 26, city staff have been removing early and mail ballots from envelopes and feeding them into tabulators at City Hall, Room 801, daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., the notice says. All ballots processed in advance by 5 p.m. on Oct. 30 will be centrally tabulated.

After polls close, the department will upload unofficial results from each precinct as materials come back to City Hall, and uploads may not begin until 10 p.m., according to the notice. The first numbers posted on election night will include ballots cast in person Tuesday and the early and mail ballots counted centrally.

They will not include hand-counted ballots recorded in a precinct clerk's book after the polls close, or mail and absentee ballots that arrive on time Tuesday but too late to be sent out to the precincts. Other ballots that arrive Tuesday, or that arrive by Nov. 6 with a Nov. 3 postmark, will be counted at a later date that the department says it will announce publicly.

Election-night totals will show citywide or district-wide results for each candidate. The department expects to post precinct-level unofficial results by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 4.

What else is new at the polls

Poll workers will use Poll Pads, electronic tablets, to check voters in. The department said the steps for voters do not change: check in, receive the three-card ballot, mark it, check out and cast it.

Printed ballots will be available in English and Spanish, English and Chinese, and English and Vietnamese where required, with interpreters available on request. All voting locations are wheelchair accessible, and each has an AutoMark terminal so voters with disabilities can mark a ballot independently, the department said.

The notice also restates the rules for press and observers, which apply to the federal election monitors the Justice Department plans to send to Boston and Lowell. Observers must stay outside the guardrail area around the check-in table, booths and ballot box, may not interact with voters inside the polling place, and may not make audio recordings there.

Galvin's office has urged voters statewide to study the ballot questions before arriving and bring a list of their choices, on paper or a phone, to keep lines moving. "You will still have the right to take as much time as you need within reason," Galvin told WBUR. Polls open at 7 a.m.; anyone in line at 8 p.m. may still vote.