Cambridge May Computerize Election Process

Cambridge's Byzantine election procedures--which for decades have mirrored the city's even more complex voting system--may be computerized before the turn of the century.

The City Council approved City Manager Robert W. Healy's request to spend $2,500 to hire a consultant to explore the possibility of modernizing the city's election procedures, at a council meeting Monday night.

Currently, paper ballots are used for the city's biennial City Council and School Committee elections. Every two years, thousands of ballots are sorted and tallied in the basement of the Longfellow School by up to 20 citizens hired for two weeks' work.

Because of the city's unique system of proportional representation, ballots are sorted according to the top preferred candidate and recounted--sometimes up to a dozen times--as votes for losing candidates are reassigned to runners-up.

The results of the races for the nine-member city council and the seven-member school committee are often not known until four or five days after the polls close, and even then, results must be verified--by hand.

Proponents of a computerized system say it would provide more accurate and faster results and would save costs over the longrun. Equipment expenses would be small compared to the costs of hiring a cadre of Cantabrigians to count ballot for seven or eight days every two years, according to Healy.

And voting machines could also be used to modernize state and federal elections. Currently, the paper ballots from state and federal votes are counted at Harvard's Office for Information Technology (OIT), according to Robert Winters, a Harvard math preceptor and a member of the city Election Commission's technical working subcommittee on the computerization of the Cambridge elections.

But even supporters of the proposal warn that old habits die hard, especially in Cambridge.

"The culture about how the elections take place here is something very old, 50 years of tradition," Winters said. "One of our top criteria [for switching] is keeping as much tradition as possible."

Although the council approved the consulting fee, council members expressed skepticism over the scheme.

"Computerization, while I support it if it is done correctly and well, is a process that could easily be done wrong," Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 said Monday.

Vice Mayor Sheila T. Russell told the council that the voting procedure, while bureaucratic, is a unique feature of the city. "It's kind of a torture, but you end up enjoying it," she said, calling the process "an annual rite of fall."

"The pencil and the paper is a very powerful way of voting," said council member Kathleen L. Born, who captured her seat by just 12 scratches of pencil on paper in 1993.

"It will be a big amount of money to computerize the count in this day and time right now, with all the other problems in the city," said Artis B. Spears, the new chair of the board of election commissioners. "Computerization would be good. My concern is the cost." The soonest computerization could be implemented is the 1997 election, she added.

The most recent city vote reflects the problems of the current election system. Councillor William H. Walsh was removed from the council following his sentencing on federal bank fraud charges, and Anthony D. Galluccio, a legislative aide and law student, won in the recount of Walsh's ballots last December.

But the board of election commissioners could not declare Galluccio the winner because 19 ballots were missing. After a painstaking search, it was discovered that the ballots had been placed in the wrong pile.

Still, one councillor remained unconvinced.

"The computers--I just don't see how that could replicate the experience of the count at the Longfellow" school, said Timothy J. Toomey Jr. "There are some things too sacred to sacrifice. I will be voting against the measure."

The expenditure was passed, 8-1.

In addition to forming the subcommittee on computerization, the four-member board of election commissioners is gearing up for the fall elections under Spears, its new chair.

The other commissioners voted Spears chair following the retirement of Edward J. Samp Jr. from the commission. A Republican and the first Black election commissioner in Cambridge, she has served on the commission for 14 years.

Samp's spot was filled by another fellow Republican, Wayne A. "Rusty" Drugan Jr., in April. The city manager appoints the election commissioners, two from each political party.