A Dozen Discarded Ballots And Other Election Hiccups In Waltham

WALTHAM, MA — The city clerk has run into a couple of hiccups amid early voting, but nothing that has raised red flags at the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office amid an unusual voting year that has put extra pressure on small clerk's offices across the country.

"Because of the pandemic, there is a bit of a learning curve," said Debra O’Malley of the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. "But nothing widespread, and certainly nothing malicious. It’s just small clerks' offices trying to do the best they can."

The Waltham City Clerk's office has had its share of mistakes. First, it sent out early ballots with the September primary date deadlines, then it sent out mail-in-ballots to a few hundred people who didn't request them. Then, this weekend they found someone accidentally put about a dozen already voided ballots in the dumpster.

Although some worry mistakes like these could undermine people’s confidence in the process, O’Malley said these are minor and have been rectified correctly.

"With all elections, there are often minor clerical errors just because of the volume of voters. And this year the volume of voting by mail it may seem like more [mistakes]," she said.

But people should keep in mind that more than half of the city's registered voters applied to vote by mail and some 19,000 ballots have been mailed out, she said.

"That is a huge volume for the city to be mailing and receiving, usually it would only be a couple hundred," she said. Unfortunately, clerical errors do occur. And we try to fix them as fast as possible so voters can vote."

City clerk Bob Waddick echoed that sentiment.

"Voters can be comfortable that the process here in Waltham is going to be safe and secure, we’ve worked very hard at it," he said. "We have experienced a few hiccups, as other communities have. We’re dealing with an unprecedented year."

In past, the most mail his staff of six has had to send out to voters has been about 2,000 pieces of absentee ballots. This year, it's something like 18 times that.

In addition, the city has had to plan, train and supervise staff on 14 days of early voting, test the ballot machines, plan the process to count the early mailing and early voting and respond and pivot to regular updates coming in from the state on updated procedures as we head toward Election Day.

"All of this doesn’t happen by accident," said Waddick. "A lot of work goes into it all."

The hiccups

Over the weekend a man photographed ballots in the dumpster outside and posted the image to social media. The clerk's office didn't realize what had happened until the police department brought it to their attention after seeing it on social media and his office was able to address it quickly.

Waddick said those 12 ballots were ballots that voters who had requested mail-in ballots but changed their mind brought with them to dispose of. They were voided and placed in a bin next to the trash. On accident, he said, when someone was emptying the trash they took that bin, as well.

"As soon as we realized that had happened those were pulled out. It won't happen again," said Waddick, who stressed that his team had developed a new process on handling rejected ballots, that included putting them in a different, locked room.

Although Waddick said his office needs to hold onto the void ballots like those to account for them, he emphasized those were void ballots.

In this case he said he wished the person who took the picture had come to his office so they could have addressed it immediately.

"Did we want those in the dumpster? No we did not," he said.

In mid October, Waddick's office tracked down about 500 residents and sent them letters to let them know his office had inadvertently categorized a group of early voters after the state primary as having requested mail-in ballots and sent them ballots. However, because in order to vote by mail you must submit a request, those who got the mail-in ballots and wanted to use them needed to also submit a request for the ballot. In the letter, he included a stamped envelope to do just that. For those who wanted to just go vote early as they had previously, he said, they could do that instead or they could hold out until Election Day.

Waddick said part of that clerical error came down to a state database malfunction, which was later fixed.

"We got on top of that immediately, and people understood it," he said.

Some returned their mail-in ballots, others opted to vote in person, he said.

"We are all trying to implement the state's new system during an unprecedented process here," he said.

Trying to be transparent

In all three instances, the city clerk's office put out public notice in an effort to let voters know what happened and steps they could take if it impacted them.

"I’m trying to be very transparent about these things," he said. "I’m not dismissing anything, we’ve had these hiccups, but over all I think we’ve done 99.99 percent of things very well and people can feel very sucre that this election has been managed properly. Yes there have been a few hiccups here and there, but I think by and large we’ve done a good job, and I’ve very proud of this staff, people have been burning the midnight oil here to get this done."

Galvin's office agreed.

"It may seem like people are seeing more mistakes, but keep in mind it's a a small staff trying really hard to get these ballots out and back as quick as possible under a new system," said O'Malley.

And in Waltham, she said, it would certainly seem like that has worked out pretty well.

Some 38 percent of voters have already voted, according to her. That's about about half of the total ballots cast in Waltham during the 2016 presidential election.

Related:

Vote By Mail Instructions Had Typo: Waltham City Clerk

Election 2020: Waltham Voter Guide

Jenna Fisher is a news reporter for Patch. Got a tip? She can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna). Have a something you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how .