On Election Day, voting reviewed

While the state has taken steps to make voter information more accessible, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin said Monday that he expects voter turnout in today’s 48 municipal elections around the state only to average between 20 and 30 percent.

In cities where there are intense races for mayoral positions and important local issues on the ballot, voter turnout may be as high as 50 percent, Galvin said.

Galvin noted that voters are “less inclined to vote in local elections,” even though education issues, zoning regulations and local property taxes are determined in these elections. “Issues that really affect people” are on the ballot, he said, but turnout rates reflect that fewer than half of eligible voters turn out for local elections.

Boston’s municipal election includes positions for mayor, city councilors-at-large and district councilors. Still, voter turnout is not expected to surpass 30 percent.

Galvin detailed measures taken by the state to make voting easier for those eligible. The state has created a website — www.wheredoivotema.com — to provide ballot information and the hours and locations of polling stations.

Boston and other cities with a high percentage of Spanish-speaking voters will provide ballots in Spanish. Translators of Chinese, Vietnamese and Russian will be available at polling stations with high numbers of voters who speak these languages.

Galvin reported that besides a few situations involving dialects unknown to translators, “virtually no problems with the issue of language” arose at the Sept. 27 preliminary election.

The state has also taken responsibility to determine a voter eligibility for provisional ballots, he said.

Galvin stressed that inactive voters — those who have failed to respond to address listings or to vote in three successive state elections — are eligible voters, as long as they live within the same municipality in which they originally registered.

Galvin also addressed the signing of the initiative petitions but said signatories should be cautious.

Proponents of an amendment to ban gay marriage have recently come under fire for allegedly misleading people who thought they were signing a petition about alcohol sales but were actually signing the gay marriage petition.

“We want to protect the rights of the voters to sign initiatives,” he said, stressing that there is “no excuse for voters to be misled.”

Galvin said he is pushing for an amendment to the State Constitution that would allow absentee ballot voting without an explicit reason. Currently, only people who are disabled, away from their communities on Election Day or occupied with religious obligations may cast absentee ballots.

At polling stations in Watertown, Woburn and Waltham, three types of electronic voting will be tested and evaluated, Galvin said. These sites will strive to meet the standards of the Help America Vote Act by allowing disabled voters to vote without assistance.

“[Massachusetts has] been on the cutting edge of national policy in this area,” Galvin said.