The Massachusetts Voter Table is gearing up for another busy year for advocacy and voter engagement. Between post-election into the new year, our Table staff and Table partners settled on our state-wide priorities for our collective work and growth.
Here’s what you can expect us to be mobilizing our partners, and you, on this year:
Our 2025 Organizational Priorities
1️⃣ Municipal Elections/Making City Hall Work in Massachusetts:
Public housing, accountable policing, education, healthcare resource funding, and more are just some of the key decisions and powers of elected municipal leaders. These decisions, arguably, have the most concrete and immediate impact on low-income and BIPOC residents in our most disenfranchised communities across the state. Additionally, local elected officials often ascend to the statehouse and/or Congress, into positions that form the first rung on the leadership ladder of both state and national politics. However, voter participation among people of color, young people, and low-income voters drops off sharply between state-level and local elections with turnouts as low as 10%. In 2025 we aim to drive voter engagement and participation through targeted outreach, education, and mobilization efforts with our partners.
2️⃣ Voting Access/Same Day Voter Registration and Decoupling the Municipal Census:
We continue our over a decade-long fight to pass Same Day Voter Registration. With 23 states and D.C. already having passed Same Day, Massachusetts is long overdue. No eligible voter, who shows up on election day, should be turned away due to our antiquated voter registration policies. Additionally, not responding to the municipal census should no longer result in being removed from the voting register. This change will maintain the municipal census for data collection and jury selection; moving forward if a voter does not return the annual municipal census, they will not be labeled an INACTIVE VOTER. These issues predominately create barriers for low-income and BIPOC working-class communities, than they do for other communities. Our Table, alongside coalition partners in the Election Modernization Coalition will be working hard this year to advocate for the passage of both these issues this legislative session.
3️⃣ Housing/Rent Stabilization:
Victories on raising wages and improving benefits in several gateway cities are negated due to increasing rents, adversely impacting vulnerable people. Massachusetts residents are economically struggling and rent stabilization is one way to help. Everyone, regardless of what you look like or what ZIP code you live in, deserves an affordable place to live. For thirty years, profit-seeking corporate investors have taken advantage of an outdated ban on local rent control, spiking housing costs and making it impossible for many of us to stay in our homes and communities. We know to enact modern, common-sense rent control housing stability would increase for hundreds of thousands of residents and advance racial justice.
4️⃣ Clean Slate/Automatic CORI Sealing:
The Clean Slate Bill will be pivotal in changing the lives of many residents across the state. We plan with this legislation to advocate for the automatic sealing of certain criminal records after a three- or seven-year waiting period, allowing people with previous convictions to secure meaningful employment, find housing, pursue their education, and participate fully in their communities. Massachusetts has taken bold action in CORI reform in previous years, but this goes one step further in ensuring eligible citizens, returning to their homes and communities, have a good opportunity to become productive members of their communities. Individuals who cannot find legal housing or jobs are more likely to re-offend, making their communities less safe. BIPOC and low-income communities stand to benefit the most economically if this is passed.
5️⃣ Immigration/Safe Communities Act:
With immigration being a hot topic on the national level, and movement spaces feeling driven to support current immigrants and migrants, our Table has moved to support the Safe Communities Act. It’s time to end the voluntary involvement of our public safety officials in civil immigration matters. The Safe Communities Act would: Prohibit questioning by court and police officials about immigration status, protect basic rights, just like a “Miranda” warning, protect access to justice in our courts, and prohibit agreements that deputize local officials as federal immigration agents, at state taxpayers’ expense. Activists and police chiefs have been working towards passing the Safe Communities Act for nearly a decade; 2025 is the year to make this a reality for our residents. Furthermore, this would offer safety to immigrants when reporting domestic violence, workplace violations, and housing violations to public officials, without fear of retaliation or deportation.
Through innovative voter outreach strategies, the engagement of our Democracy HUBS and table members, and our coalition work, MVT builds the capacity and leadership of our members. We work to advance a collective agenda of local and statewide policy for racial and economic justice, by bringing together community organizations across the state. The efforts we take this year have the capacity to impact our collective long-term agenda for change for our most vulnerable communities. We can’t do this work without your help.
We remain grateful to you for supporting MVT. As we embark on meeting the urgency of current national politics’ impact on communities, and deepening our reach and work during critical 2025 municipal elections and an ambitious legislative agenda, we lean on you once again for your support.