By Alison Kuznitz | akuznitz@masslive.com
A small contingent of voting reform activists made a beeline to House Speaker Ron Mariano’s office in the Massachusetts State House on Wednesday, as they kicked off their new weekly lobbying effort to prod Beacon Hill lawmakers to adopt Election Day voter registration within a broader legislative package.
“There’s a really strong urgency to get this done ... I think the urgency to go big for democracy, go big for voting, to have Massachusetts be an example to the rest of the country about when some states are moving in the wrong direction, we can move in the right direction,” said Geoff Foster, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a Boston-based nonprofit focused on “building a better democracy” in the commonwealth. “And I think there’s strong agreement amongst our coalition that if Election Day registration is not included, there’ll be unfinished business around voting rights in Massachusetts.”
The so-called VOTES Act — and the fate of a compromise provision to allow Massachusetts residents to register to vote on Election Day — has remained stuck in closed-door negotiations for months.
In bills passed by the Senate and House, both chambers agreed on pandemic-era reforms for mail-in voting and expanded early voting.
But unlike the Senate, the House opposes same-day voter registration, which proponents have characterized as a common-sense measure to bolster equity and access. Nineteen states — including Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine — have enacted Election Day registration, plus Washington, D.C., according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin strongly supports election-day registration, which he described as an “extremely valuable remedy.” Galvin told MassLive Wednesday he’s not surprised the VOTES Act remains lodged in conference committee — though he said details must be ironed out by the end of the month to avoid disruptions to mail-in voting options.
“The House conferees are entrenched in their opposition to this,” Galvin said. “The problem is that, in the end, the impasse that occurred because of that, all of the other issues are the bill — which are reforms that we very effectively used during the pandemic (and) which would now be made permanent — are also tied up.”
The delay already sparked confusion for voters who cast ballots in recent municipal elections without the expanded menu of pandemic voting protections.
“Spring town elections went forward with the old system because there was nothing in place,” said Nancy Brumback, director of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. “So we don’t want that to continue through the primary and fall election this year.”
Mariano was working from his district Wednesday, activists were informed as they inquired about meeting with the Quincy Democrat at the State House. They instead left fact sheets about provisional ballots and same-day voter registration before heading to other lawmakers’ offices.
More than 2,500 provisional ballots — cast by Bay Staters who believed they were registered to vote, but ultimately did not appear on voter rolls at their polling location — were rejected in the 2020 election, Foster said. But should Election Day voter registration be codified into law, Foster said, the majority of people would be able cast ballots that are ultimately counted.
Most rejected provisional ballots occur in cities, which disproportionately impact renters, people of color and naturalized citizens, said Beth Huang, executive director of the Massachusetts Voter Table. This includes people who moved and never updated their voter registration information.
By contrast, Huang said, provisional ballots are far less common in smaller towns predominantly comprised of homeowners — with some residents living there for years, if not decades.
“We see this kind of weighting of our democracy toward homeowners in Massachusetts, in a state that has a homeownership gap of two to one between Black households and white households,” Huang said. “It is an untenable way to reach a more equitable democracy. We need to level the playing field.”
More than one-third of all rejected provisional ballots — 731 — were in Boston. Worcester had the second-highest rejected volume at 182, followed by Lowell at 149, according to information provided by the Massachusetts Election Modernization Coalition. That coalition, embracing “walk-around Wednesdays” at the State House, plans to assemble supporters spanning voting rights advocates, religious organizations and the private sector to lobby lawmakers.
As Galvin and activists see it, the thorny process of vetting provisional ballots should be replaced by allowing Election Day registration at the polls.
A revamped system would ease administrative burdens on election workers and local officials who “spend all day on Election Day trying to verify” provisional ballots, Galvin said.
“Most of them they can’t because they didn’t ever re-register, which means at the end of the day the voter doesn’t get to participate, the provisional ballot is destroyed and my folks have spent an enormous amount of time working — doing an administrative dance to prove this,” Galvin said. “It’s an unfair use of their resources, as well.”
Election Day registration would take a matter of minutes, Galvin said, once workers consult a central voter registry and check people’s identification proving their new address and precinct
The issue of provisional ballots made headlines earlier this week, when Gov. Charlie Baker voiced his latest concern over a separate bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.
Baker argued the Work and Family Mobility Act — which passed in the Senate last week, after the House approved similar legislation in February — would erroneously register people to vote due to interconnected administrative functions at the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.
“I believe it creates a lot of complexity for cities and towns,” Baker told reporters Monday. “I think if it passes, we will have huge numbers of provisional votes, which will then make it harder for people to actually figure out who won elections.”
Foster refuted the governor’s claim.
“It’s not correct in the sense that registered voters don’t fill out provisional ballots. Provisional ballots are for voters who on Election Day show up to vote but aren’t on the voter list,” Foster said. “But we do think that any provisional ballot that is cast and rejected highlights the sore need for Election Day registration.”