Boston’s election chief has slipped out of the spotlight just as the city’s voting operations remain under state control, leaving City Hall to hunt for a new boss before the next big vote.
Eneida Tavares, who had been serving as elections commissioner, recently stepped down while the Boston Elections Department is still under state receivership. City registrar Paul Chong is now acting commissioner during the transition, and the city has posted a public listing for a permanent replacement. The shakeup lands in the middle of an unprecedented period of state oversight that followed major problems during the 2024 presidential election.
Mayor Michelle Wu’s office says the move was voluntary. The administration confirmed that Tavares left the commissioner role but declined to specify exactly when she stepped down or what her new assignment is. Michael Osaghae, a spokesperson for the mayor, said Tavares “was not removed for disciplinary reasons and remains employed by the city,” and that Chong is serving in the interim, according to The Boston Globe.
The city has already begun advertising for a new leader. A posting for “Commissioner of Elections Department” on LinkedIn lists a $145,000 salary and spells out residency and party-affiliation requirements. The role includes oversight of municipal, state and federal elections, supervision of roughly 30 full-time staff, and management of thousands of seasonal poll workers.
On paper, though, Tavares has not entirely vanished. The City of Boston’s Elections Commission webpage still lists her as a current member, a sign that the administrative cleanup has not quite caught up. That roster is still live on Boston.gov.
Why the State Stepped In
The quiet change at the top comes after a very loud meltdown at the polls.
Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin placed Boston’s Elections Department under state receivership in early 2025, after an investigation into the 2024 presidential election found widespread ballot shortages, voting-machine failures and serious communication breakdowns on Election Day. The probe reported that the department failed to answer more than a thousand calls from poll workers and residents and that calculation errors left many precincts short of ballots, according to Boston.com.
The findings were severe enough that the state stepped in to oversee Boston’s election machinery, a rare move that effectively put local operations on probation.
Rebuilding After a Breakdown
City officials, now working under the eye of the state’s designee, say they have started shoring up the system.
They have added a dedicated phone line for poll workers, brought in volunteers to handle overflow calls, and distributed tablets to precincts for voter lookups. Boston also hired a national consulting firm, The Elections Group, to help modernize communications and training. Officials say those changes helped prevent a repeat of the earlier debacle and that last November’s municipal election did not see the same large-scale failures, according to The Boston Globe.
For now, the mayor’s office is leading the search for a new commissioner, while the state’s representative continues to oversee preparations for upcoming elections. The hire will need serious experience with large-scale operations and election law, and will step into a department that is still working to rebuild trust with precinct workers and voters after the 2024 breakdowns.
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