Massachusetts' first experience with early voting will begin in two months as a new early voting law allows people more opportunities to vote. The early voting period starts 11 business days preceding the November 8 general election. Within that period, municipalities are required to have at least one voting site open during normal business hours, but there is great flexibility in how the law is implemented.

The Election Modernization Coalition, of which LWVMA is a member, has urged municipalities to institute a robust version of early voting that includes evening and weekend hours and, in communities of more than 35,000 people, multiple voting sites. 

At an August 4 press conference, the coalition released results of a preliminary survey indicating that 40% of the state's municipalities are in the final stages of planning for early voting, 35% have started planning, and 13% had no plans at. (The remaining communities could not be reached.) However, the results also indicated that only a small number of municipalities were implementing the most robust versions of early voting recommended by the coalition.  The coalition will issue a final report on early voting this fall.

With fewer than 50% of young people between 18 and 29 voting in the 2012 election, LWVMA challenged Massachusetts  high school students to create public service announcements to mobilize the 2016 youth vote. 

On June 6, we honored the creators of the three top videos and ten honorable mentions at an award ceremony at the State House. Representative Cory Atkins spoke about the importance of youth civic engagement, and Representative David Linsky, Representative James Arciero, and several legislative aides were also on hand to present the students with official citations.

What groups in Massachusetts are left out of the electoral process and what will it take to reach them?  On April 30, our panel of experts -- Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg (CIRCLE), Eva Millona (MIRA), Nathaniel Stinnett (Environmental Voters Project) -- shared strategies for mobilizing underrepresented groups in our state.

Several bills LWVMA strongly supported passed in the 189th session of the Massachusetts legislature, which ended at midnight Sunday, July 31.

A bill improving access to public records, a strong pay equity bill and an energy diversity bill that increases the state's reliance on renewable energy sources all passed with active League support.

The legislature in this session made major strides in considering bills to reform the criminal justice system.  While only the bill to repeal automatic drivers' license suspensions for certain drug-related offences passed, the work done on criminal justice reform is expected to carry over into the new session which begins in January.

In the next session, the League will again work for election reform bills, including ones to implement automatic voter registration and election day registration and to redraw Boston precinct lines.