Again, If This Shocks You...

...you have NOT been paying attention.

When I first heard the stories last week about how some of the polling places in Boston were running out of ballots on election day, my first thought was probably the same as yours.

How tough a job is this?

You've got a list of registered voters in front of you. Count the names on the list. Get that number of blank ballots. We're talking about the kind of math that baffles first-graders.

And, Boston election officials, apparently.

Hub's ballot practice illegal, Galvin says

Boston's longstanding election policy of stocking polling places with only enough ballots for half the registered voters violates state law, Secretary of State William F. Galvin said yesterday in a letter lambasting the city for its handling of Tuesday's election.

I blame Diebold.

Galvin said his office would launch "an immediate investigation into the practices and procedures of the Boston Elections Department" and sharply criticized the city for "egregious problems" during the election.

"Voters were subjected to inordinate and needless delays in exercising their franchise, and some voters may have left without voting," Galvin wrote. "This is absolutely unacceptable and violative of the most fundamental principles of our democratic process."

The democratic process being violated in the People's Progressive Republic of Massachusetts?

Say it isn't so!