City review finds hundreds of voters incorrectly assigned

After a 6-month review of ward and precinct assignments, the Boston Elections Department determined that an additional 370 addresses containing 850 voters were incorrectly assigned, the City of Boston announced Tuesday.

The review was prompted by an error in the Lower Mills section of Dorchester, where the Reporter noted about 200 voters were mis-registered in August 2015, just before the preliminary municipal elections in their district. An error attributed to 1960s property assignments and the voters were re-registered that week.

Further review took place before the Nov. 3 city council election for consistency with council districts, the Elections Department said in a statement. At the conclusion of the election, the department delved into an assessment of other electoral boundaries.

In a characteristically confounding mix of outdated precinct boundary markers — unused railroad lines, for instance — and legislative alterations dating back to the 1990s, the city determined that some 370 addressed were inaccurately assigned.

Such inaccurate assignments can be partly chalked up to the CIty of Boston’s relationship to state districting law. Boston is unusually exempt for certain state laws that mandate new ward and precinct divisions every 10 years, according to the statement, so regular reviews do not necessarily take place or catch outmoded divisionary lines.

The conundrum of what body had legal authority to reassign voters is another complication, so the City announced that it and the Secretary of State’s office determined that the original City designation of wards and precincts would stand.

As the City moves all improperly assigned addresses to the correct designations, it announced that it will be informing the affected households in the coming weeks. All voters should be informed by the March 1 federal primary.

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