The Boston Elections Department this morning announced that, as of 9 a.m., 58,854 ballots had been cast in polling locations across the city, representing 15.2 percent of the city’s registered voters.
City officials said there are more than the number of ballots required to satisfy each of the 387,142 registered voters eligible to participate. Since September’s primary elections, the City has registered an additional 28,930 voters. Registered Democratic voters total 211,316; Republican voters total 25,903; unenrolled voters total 147,858; and Green-Rainbow and other designations total 2,065.
During the 2008 presidential election, 236,525 ballots were cast out of a possible 380,881 registered voters.
Boston has a total of 255 precincts and 153 polling locations which will be open from 7 a.m .to 8 p.m.
Of the 1,911 election officials working today, more than 458 are fluent in second languages. Bilingual election officials will be available to assist voters in Spanish, Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese dialects), Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Kreyole, Italian, Portuguese, Somali, Arabic and Russian.
Seventy trained elections officials will serve as “Accessibility Ambassadors” for seniors and people with disabilities. The ambassadors are trained on how to properly use the Auto Mark assistive marking device and to ensure that all voters have access to the polls.
