Boston election officials: Last minute voting instructions for election day, improvements to vote counting

As Bostonians head into the last day to vote in the 2024 election, city officials have a few last minute tips for voters.

“Tomorrow is election day, and it’s the last opportunity for voters to cast their ballot in this election,” said Elections Commissioner Eneida Tavares in a Monday briefing. “It used to be the first opportunity, but now it’s last opportunity.”

For residents voting in person on Tuesday, polls around the city will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.. Polling locations in Massachusetts can be found by searching the Secretary of State’s voter registration search page.

The city’s 275 precincts are set to be staffed by 2,300 poll workers, Tavares said. Over 400 of the poll workers speak a language other than English, the commissioner said, and the elections department will also staff a language assistance line with interpreters for the city’s 12 major languages to help voters.

Poll workers are trained to dial into the language assistance line in the case a voter needs interpretation services, Tavares said.

Voters who requested mail-in ballots are still able to cast their votes on election day in Boston.

“We’re encouraging voters who have not yet returned their ballot, if you still have a ballot in your possession, even though it can be postmarked by Nov. 5, we are encouraging voters to use a ballot drop box to return their ballot,” said Tavares.

Mail-in ballots can be dropped at ballot drop boxes on Tuesday by 8 p.m. Locations are listed on the city website’s ballot drop box map. Drop boxes are monitored 24 hours a day, Tavares said, and officials with police presence will collect ballots from the boxes three times on Tuesday.

If a voter requested a mail-in ballot and has not yet cast the ballot, they can also choose to vote in person in Boston on election day. Voters may not drop off mail-in ballots at polling locations, but may vote in-person at their polling place.

Voters may also still mail in their ballots, as long as the ballot is postmarked by Nov. 5 and arrives by Nov. 8 — though election officials recommend voters use drop boxes to ensure ballots don’t miss the deadline. Overseas and military absentee ballots may arrive by Nov. 15.

“We had a very successful early voting period, which began on Oct. 19 and ended on Friday, Nov. 1,” Tavares said.

As of Nov. 1, just over 91,000 people or 20.8% of voters in Boston had already cast their ballots.

Nearly 127,000 requested vote-by-mail ballots this election, according to the Elections Department data, compared to 192,000 in the pandemic-era presidential election in 2020. In-person early voting totals reached over 29,000 this year, compared to nearly 57,000 in 2020.

For election day, Tavares said, city officials are monitoring demonstrations and threats of violence with internal and external partners. As of Monday, she said, no threats have emerged but the department is remaining prepared.

“Running free and fair elections is one of the most important responsibilities of our government,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “And we’re very proud that the Boston elections department really strives to be best in class in how we operate, smooth, transparent, efficient processing of the ballots and are able to support our residents and voters.”

Wu spelled out improvements to the vote tabulation process in the city, noting that some precincts with high levels of early voting and voting by mail will use a central tabulation facility open to public observance. The city also have three “high-speed tabulators,” she said, up from one in previous elections.

“We know this is a very high intensity election, and Boston in particular is always eager to see what the results are and keep refreshing the website,” said Wu. “We hope the process will be available a little bit sooner than in previous years, but wanted to set expectations and hope that results will begin to post around 10 p.m. on election night.”

Election results in Boston can be found on boston.gov/election.

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