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Boston election ballot mess raises concerns about city’s ability to handle ranked-choice voting

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Boston election ballot mess raises concerns about city’s ability to handle ranked-choice voting


Boston’s failures in last week’s election have prompted concerns around whether its Election Department, now under investigation by the Secretary of State’s office, would be able to handle a “dramatic” shift to a ranked-choice voting system.

Opponents of a Council proposal that seeks to overhaul the city’s election process with a ranked-choice voting system, where voters would rank their favorite candidates, have seized onto last week’s ballot shortages as proof that Boston is not equipped to handle “sweeping changes” to its electoral system.

“Ranked-choice voting is deeply flawed and should be kept far from Boston,” MassGOP spokesman Logan Trupiano said. “Before even considering sweeping changes to our electoral process, Boston must first prove it can manage a basic election.

“Mayor Wu must be held accountable for this complete failure,” Trupiano added. “With the Secretary of State’s office right here in Boston, how could such a blunder happen? Despite 766,200 ballots printed and delivered, polling locations across the city ran out of ballots. It is absolutely unacceptable.”

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Secretary of State William Galvin launched an investigation into the Boston Election Department and is considering receivership after a series of Election Day snafus left polling places in multiple neighborhoods short on ballots, reflecting what he described as “incompetence” on the part of city elections officials.

Galvin placed the Boston Election Department under receivership in 2006, after similar ballot shortages hampered that year’s November state election, in which former Gov. Deval Patrick was elected.

The Secretary of State’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Mayor Michelle Wu last week initially blamed the ballot shortages on heavy turnout. Her office later pivoted to saying there was a “miscalculation in formulas to set ballot deliveries for precincts that would be processed ahead of Election Day.”

The city’s election failures came amid a City Council push, led by the body’s President Ruthzee Louijeune, for a switch to ranked-choice voting — a process Boston Election Department officials have already said would create operational challenges, additional costs, and prolong the amount of time it would take to count ballots on election night.

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A spokesperson for Mayor Wu said in a statement the “City of Boston Elections Commission will always carry out their charge to administer free and fair elections under the laws that define election procedures in the Commonwealth.”

“We continue to work closely with the Secretary of State’s office and to conduct our internal review to identify needed improvements for the most efficient and effective ways to ensure full access to the ballot,” the Wu spokesperson said.

Gregory Maynard, a political consultant and executive director of Boston Policy Institute, said, however, that the city’s handling of last week’s election “doesn’t bode well for Boston’s version of ranked-choice voting.”

“One of the major advantages of Cambridge, Massachusetts’ version of ranked-choice voting is that it doesn’t require a preliminary election, so the city can focus on just the November Election Day,” Maynard said. “The plan Boston is pursuing still has a preliminary and adds all this complexity to the actual ballot counting in November.”

Paul Craney, executive director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said “ranked-choice voting doesn’t deliver on its promises,” and “only elects a winner by eliminating ballots.”

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“Even if Boston could hold its elections without controversy, ranked-choice voting is a bad idea,” Craney said.

Larry DiCara, an attorney and former city council president, called ranked-choice voting a “very interesting idea from very well-intentioned people who do not necessarily understand how complicated voting is for a lot of people, and how even more complicated it would be.”

“I think that it’s a great thing for highly intelligent people who can figure it out, and for people, who English is not their first language … I think it’s confusing,” DiCara said. “You’ve got to be careful when you’re running elections because people’s franchise is at stake, and the simpler we make it for people, the better.”

A request for comment from the council president, Louijeune, on whether last week’s election mishaps raised concerns about the Election Department’s ability to handle ranked-choice voting was not returned.

Louijeune put forward the proposal in June as a way to “modernize how we vote and how every vote is heard in our elections.” The Herald reported last month on a similar statewide ballot push that is underway. A prior ballot question was defeated by Massachusetts voters in a 2020 referendum.

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Some of her colleagues, however, did not shy away from weighing in.

“After last week’s failure in leadership by the Boston Election Department, it’s obvious Boston is unable to move forward with a dramatic shift to ranked-choice voting,” City Councilor Ed Flynn said. “I’m against a change from the current system to a more complicated and confusing ranked-choice voting.

“We need to refocus our efforts on neighborhood services and the delivery of basic city services, including conducting an effective Election Day operation,” Flynn added. “We also need a dramatic change in leadership at the Election Department, including the implementation of a state receiver, to ensure this failure never takes place again.”

Councilor Erin Murphy, who last week co-wrote a letter to Galvin’s office with Flynn pushing for receivership and co-sponsored a Council hearing order on “voter accessibility and election preparedness” with Louijeune, raised similar doubts.

“We’re a long way from ranked-choice voting being implemented in Boston, and my immediate focus is ensuring that every voter who wants to participate in our elections can do so without barriers,” Murphy said. “Right now, my priority is to address critical issues within our current system before we even consider introducing a major shift like ranked-choice voting, which I don’t believe the Election Department is equipped to handle at this time.”

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Boston, MA

Q&A: Chad Finn on 'The Boston Globe Story of the Celtics'

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Q&A: Chad Finn on 'The Boston Globe Story of the Celtics'


Book Club

Columnist Chad Finn dives into the details of how his new book, “The Boston Globe Story of the Celtics,” came together.

Last month, “The Boston Globe Story of the Celtics,” a comprehensive book of nearly every recorded moment in Celtics history, was released. The book’s editor Chad Finn, a sports columnist for The Boston Globe and Boston.com, collected hundreds of Celtics stories written by renowned sports reporters, such as Bob Ryan and Jackie MacMullan, since the team’s inception in 1946.

For Boston.com’s Book Club, Finn joined Boston.com sports writer Hayden Bird to discuss his process and insights in editing his book. Watch the full video, or read highlights of the discussion below.

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Below is an abbreviated version of the discussion, which has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Bill Russell, left, star of the Boston Celtics is congratulated by coach Arnold “Red” Auerbach after scoring his 10,000th point in the NBA game against the Baltimore Bullets in Boston Garden on Dec. 12, 1964. (AP Photo/Bill Chaplis, file)

How did you approach creating this book?

With something like this, where it’s a compilation of the Globe‘s coverage of the Celtics throughout their mutual histories, the one thing you’re really wondering about is: Was everything covered?

I think it was a little bit more complicated, a little bit more reason to worry about it, with the Celtics book because of the race element with Bill Russell. Did they cover some of the stuff that players endured back then? Not being able to eat with their teammates when they would go to North Carolina for an exhibition game or something like that. So it was very satisfying, and also a bit of a relief, to find out that the Globe … had covered every single step, every single significant story along the way with the Celtics, from their launch in 1946 until putting out banner No. 18 a couple of weeks ago.

How daunting was the research process?

The first thing you have to do is sit down and make a thorough list of every significant thing chronologically that happened in Celtics history. Once you have that list of 450 different things that happened in Celtics lore, then you go into the archives and you say, “Do we have this?”

A lot of it is also our researcher, Jerry Manion, who’s just an absolute expert at finding what you’re looking for. I can’t tell you how many times in putting this book together where I would message Jerry and say, “Can you find that?” and I’d have it five minutes later. To be able to have that kind of support when you’re putting together a project that could be overwhelming is incredible. I’m incredibly grateful for that.

How did a game recap from 70-80 years ago compare to today?

The game stories and the stories from the coverage tended to be play by play, whereas nowadays, it’s a little bit of a look ahead, or a little bit of context on what you just saw, because you know about Jayson Tatum’s dunk and Jaylen Brown’s three-pointer that tied the game. Back then, that was news to you in the morning. You didn’t see it yourself. 

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Boston Celtics Larry Bird is defended by Detroit Pistons SF Mark Aguirre during Game 6 of the 1991 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals. The Pistons beat the Celtics, 117-113. Bird had 12 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds. (Barry Chin/Globe Staff)

What’s your favorite lead or passage?

One is Bob Ryan’s lead when they drafted Larry Bird. Red Auerbach took him while he still had a year left of college in Indiana State because back then there was a loophole … where you could draft a player if his college class had graduated. 

Bob Ryan had seen Larry Bird play in person. He knew what Red had just pulled off, and his lead basically said Red didn’t just look like he swallowed the canary, it looked like he swallowed the whole aviary — perfect lead for Larry Bird. The whole column turned out to be prescient about how Larry’s career would go. I have some favorite stories in the book, but that one would be right up there in the top five just because of how he started it, how he wrote it, and how right he was.

What’s something you learned about the Celtics or the Globe’s coverage that stuck out to you?

I learned that the quality of writing really elevated in the late ‘60s. People took more chances with their writing.

In 1969, Leigh Montville got hired at the Globe, and I think if you asked every Globe columnist that has worked here the last 50 years, they would tell you Leigh Montville was the best columnist of all in terms of pure writing ability. He was lyrical, and he joined the beat covering the Celtics in Bill Russell’s last year. 

There was another writer at the same time named Bob Sales. His style was very easy to read and thoughtful, and did not shy away from opinions that probably were considered pretty progressive at the time. He was very supportive of the Black players on the Celtics. I thought Bob Sales, even more than Leigh Montville because he came before him, was somebody who really changed the style of writing about the Celtics and the approach that people took to it. 

Then a whole different topic, but Bob Ryan came around. He started the Globe the same day as [Peter] Gammons in 1968 as interns. When he took over the NBA beat in the early ‘70s, it changed everything. 

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Celtics history is so intertwined with integration in basketball. How did the Globe cover that at the time?

If there was an incident, or if they were not treated as equals — which happened a lot — to their white teammates, the Globe wrote about it. And I wasn’t sure going into the book if that was going to be the case, and it was. 

There are still misconceptions about how the Celtics handled race, and a big part of that is because their team — that a certain generation remembers so well — is Bird, McHale, Danny Ainge. There was a perception: Oh yeah, Celtics, Boston, White. I mean they had the best white players, but it had nothing to do with race why they were here, and Celtics history tells you that.

Look at Celtics history, and Red just wanted to win. He didn’t care about the race or color of his players. He just wanted the best players, and that was well ahead of its time back then.

Bob Ryan sitting in the same seat as he did for the first Celtics game he attended in 1964. (Barry Chin/Globe Staff)

You lived through much of this history as a fan. How was looking at it different from the standpoint as editor of this book?

You get into the eighties, and Magic and Bird change the game in a bunch of different ways — saying they save the league really isn’t an exaggeration. To have grown up watching that, it was really cool to be able to get into that phase of the book where we are doing things that I remember and that I witnessed. 

But it was the hardest chapter in the book to edit, and it’s by far the biggest chapter in the book, for two reasons. Obviously they accomplished a lot, and they won the three titles in that era, and there were so many memorable games, the Lakers and the rivalry, the Sixers, and later on the Pistons. And with a book like this, you can’t just put the championships in it. There were so many games that resonated with people along the way. 

The other thing was the quality of the writing was mind-blowing. It was Bob Ryan at the peak of his powers; it was Dan Shaughnessy, Montville; Jackie MacMullan came along in the late ‘80s. So the hardest thing I had to do with this book was pick which story to use without being redundant when two or three of them wrote about the same subject. Which one do I use?

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What does this book mean to you and your connection to the team?

I dedicated the book to my daughter who’s the biggest Celtics fan I know. I also dedicated to Bob Ryan, who is my writing hero.

I also think just writing about the family aspect of it — that’s become a really big thing with the Celtics themselves. I’ve never seen a team that was as connected and as willing to allow people around the players, their kids, their wives, to be as big a part of things as the 2024 Celtics were. 

I think it bonded them together even more where they’ve developed this culture, where it’s just greater than what they have on the court.


What is your favorite memory of being a Celtics fan?

Kelly Chan

Content Producer


Kelly Chan is a content producer at Boston.com. She designs multimedia content on-site and across social media platforms, and experiments with new ways to engage readers.

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Wu urges state lawmakers to approve revised Boston commercial tax plan

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Wu urges state lawmakers to approve revised Boston commercial tax plan


Boston Mayor Michelle Wu spoke to a joint committee on Beacon Hill Wednesday to advance her revised tax proposal.

The mayor urged lawmakers to approve it in time for Gov. Maura Healey’s signature. Wu called the revised plan, with more protections for small businesses, a compromise, balancing the needs of residents and the business community.

Boston’s commissioner of assessing used a paperclip as a visual aid during the presentation to lawmakers to illustrate a new balance: An effort to offset revenue losses caused by vacant business space by shifting and increasing the tax burden onto commercial properties.

“We need residents to have enough money in their pockets at the end of every month to go out and support our businesses,” Wu said.

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She warned that homeowners could face steep property tax increases without the plan, which would likely be passed on to renters.

Lawmakers, however, pushed back, questioning the city’s financial needs.

“We all have to think about tightening our belts,” said Massachusetts State Sen. Susan Moran.

Wu countered, citing the need to address long-overdue salary adjustments for municipal workers.

“We had to sort of adjust the salaries after about four years of not having cost-of-living increases for municipal workers — the police contract, for example,” she explained.

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Mayor Michelle Wu announced that she’s reached a deal to temporarily raise tax rates for local businesses amid a revenue shortfall. 

The revised proposal includes measures to protect small businesses, such as raising the personal property tax exemption threshold from $10,000 to $30,000.

Still, some critics remain unconvinced. Business owner Lou Murray argued the tax hike would ultimately trickle down to consumers.

“You tax somebody, they pass on the cost down the ladder,” Murray said.

Supporters like Boston resident Chaton Green said the tax proposal is critical for those already struggling on fixed incomes.

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“I was sitting next to a 90-year-old woman, and she said, ‘I still have to work.’ And that broke me,” Green shared.

Because the proposal would temporarily raise Boston’s commercial property tax rate above the state limit, the mayor needs legislative approval to pass it on to the governor.



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Boston University Halts Admissions for Art History PhDs

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Boston University Halts Admissions for Art History PhDs


Boston University (BU) has suspended admissions for various Humanities and Social Sciences PhD tracks, including its art history program, for the 2025–2026 academic year. The news was first reported yesterday, November 19, by Inside Higher Ed.

BU did not make a public announcement, but an undated update to the PhD information page on the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’s website indicates that admissions to its PhD programs in History of Art and Architecture, American and New England Studies, Anthropology, Classical Studies, English, History, Linguistics, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Romance Studies, and Sociology were temporarily suspended.

Inside Higher Ed’s report references emails between school administrators suggesting that the move was due in part to the financial implications of a recently ratified contract with the Boston University Graduate Workers Union (BUGWU). The contract, which ended a seven-month strike in October, ensured that the university’s PhD candidates are afforded a minimum yearly stipend of $45,000 with an annual 3% raise in addition to the school covering tuition throughout the agreement’s three-year lifespan. Additional contract points include expanded healthcare coverage, commuter benefits, and subsidized dental insurance among other benefits. Though the $45,ooo minimum was a significant raise, the university did not concede to BUGWU’s demands for a $17,000 increase in yearly stipends and 7% annual cost-of-living adjustments — a conflict that led to the longest strike in the university’s history.

As reported by Inside Higher Ed, emails between Stan Sclaroff, dean of BU’s College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), and Malika Jeffries-EL, associate dean of the university’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, implied that the financial requirements of the ratified contract were points of concern for meeting the needs of existing doctoral student cohorts.

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However, Colin Riley, a spokesperson for the university, told Hyperallergic that the school “initiated [its] review of PhD programs through a task force in 2022 and began implementation of the recommendations this fall.”

BU also decided to reduce doctoral cohort sizes for the 2025–2026 academic year, Riley said, citing factors including “student success; job prospects and placements; the recommendations of the 2022 PhD Task Force on PhD Education; and ensuring we can honor the five-year funding commitments we have made to our currently enrolled doctoral students.”

A spokesperson for the Service Employees International Union Local 509 in Massachusetts, under which BUGWU organizes, did not immediately respond to Hyperallergic‘s inquiry.



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