New American Voters Fund

Massachusetts is home to 223,244 naturalized citizens who speak English “less than well.” These 200,000+ New Americans deserve the same access to casting a ballot and having a voice in the democratic process.

The Census Bureau published the list of Voting Rights Act Section 203 jurisdictions on December 8, 2021. Section 203 mandates that a jurisdiction must provide language assistance to voters if more than five (5) percent of voting-age citizens are members of a single-language minority group and do not “speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process,” and if the rate of those citizens who have not completed the fifth grade is higher than the national rate of voting-age citizens who have not completed the fifth grade. 

Massachusetts has 20 jurisdictions that meet these thresholds and must provide language access to all voters across the municipality. (Lowell is counted twice since two language minority groups meet the threshold.)

Spanish: Boston, Chelsea, Clinton, Everett, Fitchburg, Holyoke, Lawrence, Leominster, Lowell, Lynn, Methuen, Revere, Salem, Southbridge, Springfield, Worcester

Chinese: Malden, Quincy

Khmer (Cambodian): Lowell

Vietnamese: Randolph

Implementing VRA Section 203 in these jurisdictions requires:

• Hiring bilingual poll workers or interpreters at every polling location

• Hiring permanent bilingual elections department staffers

• Providing fully bilingual ballots

• Distributing bilingual outreach materials

• Targeting outreach and information sessions

• Hiring professional translators for bilingual digital information on elections

• Training the elections department on voting rights law and discrimination

• Creating clear, rapid resonse systems to discrimination or lack of access

• Collecting feedback from LEP residents to improve voting

These are necessary measures to avoid voting rights violations and subsequent litigation. However, the federal government does not provide funding to carry out these measures. Without funding, many municipalities unintentionally cut corners, and naturalized immigrant voters are disenfranchised.

Voting Rights Advocates Applaud New Expansion to Voting Laws in Massachusetts

Boston, MA — Governor Baker signed the VOTES Act into law today, expanding access to the ballot in Massachusetts. 

Voting rights advocates, public interest groups and a network of state and local organizations praised the legislation signed by Governor Baker today. The bill, An Act Fostering Voting Opportunities, Trust, Equity, and Security or the VOTES Act, is the largest expansion of voting access in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in years.  The House and Senate passed the final version of the bill last week.

The VOTES Act will make several permanent changes to Massachusetts’ election laws, including: allowing voters to vote by mail without an excuse; expanding early voting options; making sure that eligible voters who are incarcerated are able to request a mail ballot and vote; ensuring that the Commonwealth joins the 30-state Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to keep voter registration rolls up-to-date; and more. The bill also reduces the voter registration deadline prior to an election from twenty days to ten. 

The VOTES Act, sponsored by State Representative John Lawn and Senator Cindy Creem, is strongly supported by the Massachusetts Election Modernization Coalition, a coalition of advocacy organizations working to modernize the Commonwealth’s election laws. 

“We are thrilled that Governor Baker signed the VOTES Act into law today. We’d like to thank Governor Baker, Senate President Spilka and Speaker Mariano for making voting rights a priority this legislative session,” said Geoff Foster, Executive Director of Common Cause Massachusetts. “At a time when many states are making it harder to vote, this new law will modernize our elections and make our democracy more accessible and equitable.”

“We are proud Massachusetts is actively supporting voters and appreciate the Governor signing this bill,” said Patricia Comfort, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. “We expect voters to use the mail and early voting options as soon as the Sept. 6 primary election.” 

“Voters embraced mail-in voting and expanded early voting in 2020,” said Beth Huang, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Voter Table, “Now that the VOTES Act is law, we will educate voters, especially in communities of color and working-class neighborhoods, about these permanent expansions of voting rights.”

“Voting is the foundation of democracy; it is the right we exercise to protect all others,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Across the country, voting rights are in peril, but Massachusetts is charting a different course. We applaud Massachusetts policymakers for strengthening our democracy and advancing these crucial voting reforms.”

“Whatever sport you’re following right now, signing this bill is a home run, a slam dunk, or a hole in one. All of us win when voting is made more accessible and that’s what the VOTES Act will accomplish,” said Janet Domenitz, Executive Director of MASSPIRG. “Our thanks go out to Governor Baker for turning this act into law.” 

“We are overjoyed that Governor Baker has signed the VOTES Act into law,” said Vanessa Snow, Policy and Organizing Director at MassVOTE. “Policies included in the VOTES Act, like permanent mail-in voting, expanded early voting, and jail-based voting reforms, will increase accessibility and equity in our elections. We of course wish that Election Day Registration was included in this version of the VOTES Act, but we will continue to fight tirelessly for the reform in the years ahead. We thank Representative John Lawn and Senator Cindy Creem for filing the VOTES Act, as well as Senate President Spilka, House Speaker Mariano, and Governor Baker for supporting the bill.”

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The Election Modernization Coalition is made up of Common Cause Massachusetts, ACLU of Massachusetts, League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, MassVOTE, the Massachusetts Voter Table, MASSPIRG, and Lawyers for Civil Rights.

‘We need to level the playing field’: Activists push for Election Day registration in new lobbying push on Beacon Hill →

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.”