Tomorrow, the MA Senate will be taking up the VOTES Act, which contains a number of important pro-democracy reforms such as making expanded early voting and vote-by-mail permanent and enacting Same Day Registration so that voters can register or update their registration at the polls.
The MA Senate deserves credit for advancing a strong and comprehensive bill with popular, time-tested, and effective reforms. But the Senate can also make the bill even stronger by including the following amendments:
Amendment #1 (Hinds): Protecting ballot access for eligible incarcerated people, which would require correctional officials to send incarcerated individuals information about their rights, distribute registration forms and absentee ballots to all eligible voters, and ensure that the votes are collected and transferred to election officials, among other reforms to the jail-based voting language.
Amendment #4 (Rausch): Paid time off for voting, which would guarantee workers 2 hours of paid time off to vote, making sure that long hours are not a barrier to participation.
Amendment #111 (Chang-Diaz): Providing Access for Transliterated Ballots, which provides for transliteration of ballots in languages that do not use the Roman alphabet, thereby ensuring that language is not a barrier to full participation.
Amendment #17 (Rausch): Ensuring Access to Ballot Drop Boxes, which requires municipalities to have at least one secure and accessible drop box location with a requirement that larger ones have at least one secured municipal ballot drop box for each twenty-five thousand registered voters.
Amendments #18 & 19 (Rausch): Ensuring Election Day Registration in All Elections / Ensuring Vote By Mail Access in Municipal Elections, which ensure that the reforms in the bill apply to preliminary and general municipal elections. Amendment #28 (Rausch): Permitting Vote By Mail Ballots to be Returned to Regular Polling Places, which would allow voters to drop off mail ballots at their regular polling locations.
Can you email your state senator in support of these important amendments?
Take Action in Support of #NoCostCalls
Right now, families are charged exorbitant fees to maintain vital connections with incarcerated loved ones. This is a regressive tax on the most vulnerable populations of the Commonwealth that also harms public safety by limiting communication and weakening community bonds .
While only 21 percent of the state’s population is Black or Latinx, more than 54 percent of the people imprisoned by the Department of Corrections are. Black and Latinx children are, respectively, nine and three times more likely than White children to have a parent in prison. As communities already struggle with the high cost of housing, health care, and transportation, no one should be forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries and maintaining contact with loved ones.
Today, the Judiciary Committee will be hearing testimony on important legislation to eliminate such fees.
Can you submit testimony to the Judiciary Committee in support of the #NoCostCalls bill?
Redistricting and YOU: How to Effectively Lobby for Fair Maps in MA
This year — likely this MONTH, the Massachusetts Legislature will be drawing the legislative and Congressional districts for the next decade. The Drawing Democracy Coalition recently released a Unity Map informed by community groups across the state. What are the key features of this map? How does one set priorities in redistricting? What makes a map fair? And how can we be effective advocates?
Next Thursday at 7 pm, we’ll have a discussion with Jordan Berg Powers of Mass Alliance, Beth Huang of the Massachusetts Voter Table, and Roberto Jiménez Rivera of the Boston Teachers Union.
RSVP HERE.
