Progressive Mass Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn was quoted in a Boston.com article today about the right for Election Day Registration in Massachusetts:

“The biggest obstacle is that many legislators view elections only through a lens of incumbent protection or self-preservation and are afraid of seeing voters they don’t already know or haven’t already spoken with show up to the polls,” Jonathan Cohn, the issues committee chair for the group Progressive Massachusetts, told Boston.com.

Additionally, with Massachusetts’s early September primary, the current registration deadline for the primary often passes before many college students have moved in. In the college-dense Boston area, Cohn thinks some legislators oppose same-day registration due to fear that student constituents could back their opponents, particularly in the House where it’s easier to swing a seat.