Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
Live updates: 2024 Election
Follow along for regular updates on the 2024 Election.
Just after polls closed in Massachusetts on Tuesday night, the Associated Press called the Bay State for Vice President Kamala Harris and reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren will keep her Senate seat, fending off Republican challenger John Deaton.
As votes continue to be tallied on election night, follow Boston.com’s live results for the latest vote totals and AP calls:
- Massachusetts results, including the five ballot questions
- New Hampshire results, including the race for governor
- Presidential results, including the national map and key swing states
AP projects Harris as winner of Massachusetts race (Nov. 5)
Kamala Harris will win Massachusetts on Tuesday, continuing a decades-long streak of victories for Democratic presidential candidates in the Bay State, the AP projects. The last time Massachusetts backed a Republican candidate was in 1984 when voters cast their ballots for Ronald Reagan. The commonwealth and its 11 electoral votes have become one of the reliable gains for Democrats in presidential elections. The Associated Press declared Harris the winner at 8 p.m. EST.
Advertisement:
Follow Boston.com’s live-updating Massachusetts election results here.
Warren reelected to Senate, AP projects (Nov. 5)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren will win a third term in the U.S. Senate, according to projections by the Associated Press made shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m.
Follow Boston.com’s live-updating Massachusetts election results here.
Police cruisers rush more ballots to three Boston neighborhoods as precincts run out (Nov. 5)
Police cruisers are delivering more ballots to Hyde Park, West Roxbury, and Roslindale to replenish multiple precincts that are either running out or running low on 2024 Election ballots Tuesday evening, officials said.
Some Boston voters might be waiting in long lines as the cruisers make their way through Ward 18, or Hyde Park, which is the city’s largest ward, and Ward 20, which makes up West Roxbury and Roslindale. As of 6:30 p.m., ballots had been delivered to all precincts in Hyde Park, and cruisers were making their way through West Roxbury and Roslindale.
Advertisement:
Debra O’Malley, the communications director for the Secretary of the Commonwealth, said all precincts in the area will receive extra ballots via police cruiser and any other supplies, whether they’re low on ballots or not.
The polls, which close at 8 p.m., won’t be extended. O’Malley said that the delay lasted about an hour, and voters still have time to cast a ballot.
“Anyone who is in line, we encourage to stay in line,” O’Malley said.
Roslindale voter Jessica Burko shared on X that voters at the Bates School were delayed due to the lack of ballots.
“More are on their way and everyone is waiting very patiently in a gigantic line,” Burko wrote. “Never seen anything like it!”
There’s a woman named Kamala Harris in Seabrook, N.H., and she’s (still) an undecided voter (Nov. 5)
With Election Day finally here, the world anxiously awaits the results of the tight race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
But who Kamala Harris is voting for still remains a question — Kamala Harris of Seabrook, N.H., that is.
“I think it would be really, really silly just to vote for somebody just because they have my name without doing any research, or knowing what they stand for,” Kamala Harris, a mother of three from the Granite State, told CBS Boston.
Advertisement:
The New Hampshire Harris also told the New York Post she is unsure who she will be voting for, saying she has struggled to “weed through the misinformation and figuring out what’s true and not true.”
Harris says she has experienced confusion about her identity repeatedly, sometimes receiving unsolicited Pay Pal requests and political donations.
Not long ago, she said, a local New Hampshire hospital apparently prepared itself for a visit from the vice president, only to be disappointed when a blonde woman checked in for the appointment.
“My birthday is April 1, April Fool’s Day. So everyone kind of thinks it’s a joke,” she told the Post.
While “Harris” is a popular last name — the 24th most common in the United States — there are relatively few Kamalas — an estimated 2,345 — nationwide, according to MyNameStats.com.
Kamala Harris of Seabrook is not the only one who shares a name with the presidential hopeful. The New Yorker reported that there is a 49-year-old Kamala Harris from San Bernardino, California, and Kamala Plaisted, of Weston, Connecticut, is a former Kamala Harris who dropped her last name when she got married.
U.S. Attorney’s office will monitor polls in 8 Mass. cities on Election Day (Nov. 4)
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced Monday that it will be monitoring polls in eight cities across the state on Election Day. The election monitors will be in place at polling locations in Everett, Fitchburg, Leominster, Lowell, Malden, Methuen, Quincy, and Salem, according to the announcement.
Advertisement:
Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement that his office, in coordination with the Department of Justice, will be observing at the selected cities on Tuesday to ensure compliance with federal voting rights laws.
“The Department’s longstanding Election Day Program is vital to combatting discrimination at the polls and furthering public confidence in the electoral process,” Levy said in a statement. “Every citizen must be able to vote without interference or discrimination. My office is proud to be a part of this important effort to protect the sacrosanct right to vote.”
Levy’s office said anyone with concerns or complaints about voting rights can contact them at (833) 634-8669. Anyone who experiences any potential violations of the federal voting rights statutes can fill out a complaint form at https://civilrights.justice.gov/ or by phone at (800) 253-3931.
“Complaints related to any disruptions at a polling place should always be reported to local election officials (including officials based in the polling place),” Levy’s office said. “Complaints related to violence, threats of violence or intimidation at a polling place should be reported immediately to local police authorities by calling 911.”
After local authorities are contacted, complaints should also be reported to the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Complaints related to violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act can be made by calling (800) 514-0301 or submitting one online.
More than one-fifth of Boston voters have already cast ballots, Wu says (Nov. 4)
More than one-fifth of Boston voters have already cast their ballot, Mayor Michelle Wu said Monday morning during a press briefing about the election.
Advertisement:
During a two-week in-person early voting period, 29,309 ballots were cast. An additional 41,607 were sent in via the U.S. Postal Service, and 20,297 were deposited in ballot drop boxes throughout the city. This adds up to 91,213 of ballots being cast as of Nov. 1, or a total of 20.8% of Boston voters have already cast their ballot.
The number of people in Boston requesting vote-by-mail ballots was down slightly from the previous presidential election in 2020. That year, amid the height of the pandemic, 192,050 people requested a ballot to be sent to them in the mail. There were 87,402 such requests in 2022, and 126,778 this year.
In-person early voting was also down in 2024. A total of 55,716 people voted early in-person in 2020. There were 9,061 such votes in 2022, and 29,309 this year, according to city officials.
Ballots started to be processed at the city’s central tabulation facility on Oct. 28. This means that they were scanned, but no one has access to the voting results until after polls close on Tuesday. The city is making a concerted effort to be more efficient this year, Wu said, in the interest of releasing results to the public in a timely manner.
Out of the city’s 275 precincts, 110 ended up sending ballots to the central facility. Certain precincts were considered “high volume” if they met a threshold of ballots being returned, and those were sent to the central facility. That facility now has three high-speed tabulation machines instead of just one, Wu said.
“The most important piece of this is that everything happens correctly and accurately, and according to all the very stringent provisions of city and state law,” the mayor said.
Advertisement:
Wu said she is hoping for results to begin posting around 10 p.m. on Tuesday night. They will be available at boston.gov/election.
City election workers have been working “around the clock” since June to prepare for this week, Election Commissioner Eneida Tavares said. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The city recruited and trained 2,300 workers to staff these polling locations. More than 400 of them speak a language other than English, and the city is operating a language assistance line for any non-English speaking voters.
The city is working with “internal and external partners” to monitor any potential threats related to the election, Tavares said. There have not been any credible threats regarding Boston’s polling locations.
Officials in Washington and Oregon are investigating fires that were set at drop boxes there. Responding to a question about the potential for similar moves here, officials said that drop boxes in Boston are being monitored under 24-hour surveillance, and the city is making a point to empty them frequently to reduce the risk of ballots being damaged in the boxes. Police will accompany city staff members while they collect ballots from the boxes.
Galvin predicts record turnout in Mass. (Nov. 4)
Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin said Monday that he believes Massachusetts is set to break voter turnout records this year.
Turnout spikes every four years, when presidential candidates are on the ballot. Almost 3.7 million Massachusetts residents voted in the 2020 elections. Almost 1.7 million ballots have already been cast this year, causing Galvin to predict a higher turnout than 2020.
Advertisement:
In addition, almost 300,000 vote by mail ballots are still outstanding. Many of these voters will opt to vote in person on Tuesday, but thousands will still be deposited in drop boxes and submitted via mail early this week.
At a press conference Monday, Galvin strongly recommended that voters not mail their vote by mail ballots if they have not done so already. Technically, vote by mail ballots will be counted if they are postmarked by Nov. 5 and received at a local election office by Nov. 8. However, the US Postal Service cannot guarantee ballots dropped this late will be received in time. Galvin said that voters with outstanding vote by mail ballots should bring them to a drop box or a local election office. These ballots cannot be returned to polling locations on Election Day.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday across Massachusetts. People waiting in line at 8 p.m. will still be allowed to vote. Galvin told residents to double check their registration status and their polling location using his office’s website.
He also stressed that ballots will be double sided, and voters need to make sure to check both sides. There are five ballot questions in Massachusetts, and explanations for each one take up a considerable amount of space.
Galvin said he is witnessing an “extraordinary commitment” from both voters and election workers in Massachusetts and around the country. He took time to reaffirm the honesty of those workers.
Advertisement:
“I may not agree with the policies or procedures of other states. I may not, certainly, agree with their choice of candidates. But I think I can tell you that the people who administer elections in the United States are people of integrity. They’re honest people, and the tallies they present are honest tallies,” he said.
There are no known credible threats to polling locations in Massachusetts, Galvin said Monday morning. He pointed to the smooth success of early voting as a sign of the system working. Galvin reminded voters that they are not allowed to wear political attire at polling locations.
Conspiracy theories about election interference circulate wildly, and Galvin said he recognizes that people may have lost some faith in the system.
“For many people, this is a very important election in terms of the process. Are we going to be able to rely on the process? I say we are, but I think for many voters, they’re very concerned about that,” Galvin said.
JD Vance calls Harris ‘trash’ in New Hampshire (Nov. 4)
While insults have been a staple of political discourse in 2024, the word “garbage” has taken on new importance during the final stretch of the campaign. It began after a comedian called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage” at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden. While some on the right defended the racist language as a joke, the Trump campaign scrambled to distance itself from the comments and minimize backlash among Puerto Rican voters.
Advertisement:
Then, President Biden made a gaffe. In attempting to defend the island and hit back at the Trump campaign, he said “the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” While Trump regularly uses dehumanizing language to describe migrants and political opponents, Biden and his allies quickly went into damage-control mode.
Trump boarded a garbage truck in an attempt to capitalize on the situation, and his running mate is now using similar rhetoric to attack Harris.
“While we’re not garbage for thinking Kamala Harris has done a bad job, I think in a couple of days the voters of New Hampshire are going to take out the trash in Washington, D.C., and person’s name is Kamala Harris,” Sen. JD Vance said at a rally Sunday evening in Derry, N.H.
Polling numbers show that Harris is expected to win New Hampshire, but her lead there has shrunk since September.
PREVIOUSLY:
Vance expressed optimism at the Trump campaign’s chances in the Granite State.
“I got to be honest, a couple months ago I wasn’t necessarily sure that the day before the last full day of the campaign, we’d be in the great state of New Hampshire,” Vance said. “But I think that it suggests that what we’re doing is expanding the map, we’re bringing new voters into this coalition.”
Mass. Gov. Maura Healey, who is set to campaign on behalf Democrats in New Hampshire Monday, said that Vance’s comments were another example of fearmongering.
Advertisement:
“Trump and Vance offer nothing but lies, misinformation, and tearing people down, and stoking fear and division,” she told The Boston Globe. “That’s not leadership.”
Bluebikes to be free on Election Day (Nov. 4)
Bluebikes, the public bicycles popular throughout the Boston area, will be free for riders to use on Tuesday. All riders need to do is enter the code BCBSMAVOTE at checkout when purchasing a day pass in the Bluebikes app.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the title sponsor of the program, is offering unlimited complimentary two-hour classic bike rides and free ebike unlocks all day long. Users who opt to ride ebikes will still need to pay on a per-minute basis.
There are 500 stations across 13 municipalities where voters can pick up their bikes. Members of the public can find the station closest to their polling location online.
“During this election season, we are dedicated to eliminating transportation barriers so every citizen can exercise their right to vote,” Jeff Bellows, vice president of corporate citizenship and public affairs at Blue Cross, said in a statement. “Bluebikes offers a convenient and accessible transportation option for residents across Metro Boston, particularly for those in underserved and underrepresented communities who may face challenges getting to their polling places.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com