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.”

Cape-wide town level meetings exclude a silent majority, advocates say →

Rachael Devaney

At a recent Barnstable Town Council meeting, Tara Vargas Wallace, of Amplify POC Cape Cod, was one of the only attendees present to advocate for the handful of affordable housing developments that have been proposed for the area.

There’s no doubt, Vargas Wallace said, that there are hundreds of families desperately in need of affordable housing throughout Barnstable’s seven villages. But they rarely appear at the bi-weekly Zoom Town Council meetings.

Those who often show up for the forums, however, are organized members of the opposition — also known as NIMBY groups (not in my back yard), Vargas Wallace said. They're there to argue in favor of environmental protection and conservation, she said.

"They rotate and take turns appearing and speaking up for what they want, and they do it in an orchestrated manner,” Vargas Wallace said. “They know how it works and they show up to each and every meeting.”

The lack of representation from those who need affordable housing, in Vargas Wallace’s opinion, directly stalls the Town Council from moving forward with potential projects that could help alleviate the mass exodus and displacement of workers and families from the Cape.

“We need more soldiers. We need consistency,” Vargas Wallace said. “We are fighting an uphill battle over available housing and people don’t seem to understand that. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.”

Giving away your voice

The struggle for engagement and participation surrounding voter turnout, council meetings in Barnstable, and town meetings on the rest of Cape Cod, reaches beyond affordable housing into local public policy areas such as wastewater funding, short-term rental taxes, environmental issues, plastic water bottle bans and public safety infrastructure costs.

Although Barnstable Town Council elections won't occur until 2023, spring elections are coming in towns across the Cape. 

Jeanne Morrison, a Barnstable resident, said voters need to fill open seats with representatives who will make decisions about the most important issues that impact day-to-day lives. 

“These are people that will shape policy for the next three to five years. When you don’t show up to advocate for yourself or your community, you’re giving away your voice,” Morrison said. “The one thing that we have as Americans is our voice. The more we stay silent, the more we allow ourselves to be suppressed. We are giving away our power.”

Those who show up are making decisions for all 

A plastic water bottle ban in Dennis was voted into place by just 92 votes, Times columnist Cynthia Stead said in a May 2021 column.

Many Dennis residents were angry about the “boilerplate petition,” Stead wrote, but those residents didn’t show up at the polls — pushing the ban forward to join other Cape towns like Brewster and Wellfleet.

“Here is a real opportunity for residents to steer and control the direction of the town itself,” she wrote. “When a board or commission is elected, they have to make decisions and set policy, but it is hard for them to do so unless questioned and informed. A town is different than living in a city in that you are not governed, you are the government yourself.”

At that time, annual elections of the Select Board, Dennis-Yarmouth School Committee, Dennis Water District and Old Kings Highway Committee was also underway but out of 12,927 eligible registered voters, 581 turned out to vote – about 5% of the Dennis population.

“The races were uncontested, so the overall attitude seemed to be one of 'Why bother?'" Stead wrote. "But if you did not like how an official was doing their job, for once it would have been simple for a write-in candidate to have a real chance of winning.”  

Voter turnout dismal overall

There's good news in Barnstable County, with 31,000 more voters casting a ballot in the spring of 2020 versus in 2018, Beth Huang, executive director of Massachusetts Voter Table, wrote in an email. But the proportion of voters skews overwhelmingly white, at 97%—with racial models based on census and commercial data—and predominantly older individuals, with 40% of voters older than 65.

For Mashpee's 2021 town-level elections, total eligible voters by precinct numbered 12,072—with only 1,709 community members showing up to the polls, about 14%.

The May 2021 annual town meeting, said Town Clerk Deborah (Dami) Kaye, "was even more dismal" with about 464 people present to approve a $62 million budget. 

For the 2020 Wellfleet annual town elections, low voter turnout  meant that just 339 ballots were cast out of 2,834 registered voters — which is about 12% of Wellfleet's voter population. 

"If you believe your voice is important, then you need to go to town meeting and to the polls," Kaye said. "We approve multi-million dollar budgets and we will approve the budget with maybe 350 people participating. I don't know what to do to get people to go to town meeting and come out to the polls."  

Lack of participation could skew future communities

There is representation throughout town meetings and during elections, said Robin Hubbard, chairwoman of the Orleans Democratic Town Committee.

Hubbard agrees with Vargas Wallace, though, that attendees who participate on a local level are strategically organizing and often push their politics into what should be a nonpartisan sphere.

“It’s not supposed to matter what party you are in for town-level elected positions. It’s supposed to be more based on who is the best person for the job,” Hubbard said. “People just want to help the Republicans or just help the Democrats. We need to help everybody. We need to take care of each other. Part of that is helping get the best people into office that can represent everyone.”

Traditionally, town meetings are set up to accommodate those “who have more time on their hands,” said Stefanie Coxe, housing advocate and founder of Nexus Werx LLC. Citizens who are older, retired, and are homeowners are typically those who comfortably engage in the process and “make decisions for the entire town,” Coxe said.

Usually held in the evenings, town meetings can often run for hours, she said. For those with families, in-person meetings are almost impossible to attend—especially for guardians who are shuttling children to and from sports, helping with homework and making dinner.

“You had to sit around town hall in meeting rooms for hours until you could testify on something,” Coxe said.

For others, the entire process can seem archaic, confusing and overwhelming, said Coxe. Especially for working people, she said, who are often too busy to become interested on a regular basis. It’s often people who are younger—people who haven't had an opportunity to fully establish themselves—who have the least opportunity to weigh in and engage, said Coxe.

“The lack of representation from all town citizens leads towards a mindset that keeps everything the same and nothing changes,” she said. “That becomes problematic when we need to change things like zoning or economic development as we try to build a vision for the future of our communities.”

COVID-19 has also halted participation 

Since the pandemic hit in 2020, Kathy Ohman, a volunteer with the Cape & Islands Democratic Council, has noticed fewer people at town-level meetings and municipal elections.

“The last two years have really been devastating for community activity like town meetings,” Ohman said. “Here in Dennis, we've often waited long hours outside (to vote) at special elections. I think it's increasingly difficult to get people engaged in a time when people are still afraid to interact with each other.”

The missing component of younger community members at town meetings also hasn’t gone unnoticed, said Ohman, a situation that she attributes to a lack of affordable housing.

“It's becoming harder and harder to engage young people down here because there aren't as many of them due to incredible affordable housing problem(s) we have,” she said. “They are being pushed out. It’s getting worse every year.”

Diverse voices needed to make change

Jennifer Cullum, a Barnstable Town Council member for Precinct 13 and chairwoman of the council’s appointment committee, ran unopposed multiple times. Nobody wants the job, Cullum said. That's another problem when important policy decisions are being made, she said.

“We have a vibrant population that can help us decide what our future is. But what has really been absent in my 10 years as a (councilor) is a diversity of voices,” Cullum said. “I don't feel like there’s real civic engagement. There's not enough people showing up.”

Initially, when meetings across the Cape went remote, Cullum was hopeful the move would “flip a switch,” in terms of participation and engagement from the community. For the first time, she felt she could reach new groups of people the council had been legislating for but who hadn't been present for the legislation.

“It meant we could get moms and parents that work two jobs at public comment. People could put their kids to bed on time, and still show up, be seen, and speak their piece,” Cullum said.

Initially, when meetings across the Cape went remote, Cullum was hopeful the move would “flip a switch,” in terms of participation and engagement from the community. For the first time, she felt she could reach new groups of people the council had been legislating for but who hadn't been present for the legislation.

“It meant we could get moms and parents that work two jobs at public comment. People could put their kids to bed on time, and still show up, be seen, and speak their piece,” Cullum said.

“Yes, Zoom meetings have the capability to widen the scope. But how are homeless people supposed to weigh in at a Zoom meeting? They are bouncing from house to house, from hotel to hotel—trying to eat and scrape up enough money to get by,” she said. “They are actively being traumatized by their situations. They are in crisis.”

Putting the burden to attend meetings on marginalized groups doesn’t make sense, said Vargas Wallace. It’s up to council members, and community leaders to conduct outreach, listen to advocates, and educate themselves about realities surrounding communities they serve, she said.

“There are council members who have been elected that can’t understand why those that need housing aren’t attending council meetings,” Vargas Wallace said. "They think that their absence shows there isn’t a problem. That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Unengaged voters: How to reach

Various mechanisms are needed to encourage and allow for diverse input from unengaged voters, Morrison said. 

"They (voters) have to believe their input matters. The same is also true of decision makers," she said. "They have a responsibility to reach out and know the issues for all residents and work with the collective of who can attend meetings and who cannot before making decisions."

The public also needs to better understand how local, county and state government interacts and the processes of decision making, Morrison said.

"If it truly is the responsibility of the public to inform leaders to make informed decisions there is room for improvement in two-way communication and transparency," she said. "Together we can create better communities that are affordable, safe, progressive and productive for all of Cape Cod residents." 

Other avenues for participation 

Although there's a silent majority of voices that don't make it to town meetings, Coxe said, many people don't know they can access most public comment portions of Town Council or Select Board meetings online. 

“You can quickly jump on (Zoom) during public comment—even if you don’t know what the solution is to a particular problem—and state your worries, concerns, or priorities,” she said. 

In addition, community members can also email select boards, town councils, or planning boards with comments, concerns and questions, Coxe said.

Or just speak to board members at the grocery store or another impromptu venue, said Coxe. 

Another avenue that gives the public some power, is joining a town committee like the Town of Barnstable’s Local Comprehensive Planning Committee, advised Cullum. Although endeavors like this can require time commitments, residents can weigh in on visions for growth and development, land use, infrastructure and resource protection for distinctive communities, she said.  

“It's one thing to invite people to the table to be part of a solution and to make suggestions in an advisory way. It's another thing to make participation a concrete path that can be accessed by all," Cullum said. “Diversity, equity and inclusion is something I'm really looking at. Different races and different ways of life. It's absolutely essential that we move forward together. We need to really embrace that.”