Calendar

Visit www.sec.state.ma.us  for more information

2020 Election Calendar

  • Last day to register and change party affiliation before MA Presidential Primary – Wednesday,February 12, 2020
  • MA Presidential Primary – Tuesday, March 3, 2020
  • Last day to register and change party affiliation before State Primary – Wednesday, August 12, 2020
  • MA State Primary – Tuesday, September 1, 2020
  • Last day to register and change party affiliation before November election – Saturday, October 24, 2020
  • State and Presidential Election – Tuesday, November 3, 2020

2020 Debate and Forum Schedule

  • Presidential Debate – Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at Notre Dame in Indiana.  9 p.m. ET for 90 minutes
  • Presidential Debate – Thursday, October 15, 2020 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  9 p.m. ET for 90 minutes – CANCELLED
  • Presidential Debate – Thursday, October 22, 2020 at Belmont University in Nashville.  9 p.m. ET for 90 minutes
  • Vice-Presidential Debate – Wednesday, October 7, 2020 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.  9 p.m. ET for 90 minutes

About the 2020 Presidential and Vice-Presidential Debates

The Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates are organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonprofit that has run the general election presidential debates starting with 1988 election.

The commission will invite candidates that both “appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College” and have an average of at least 15 percent support among the national electorate in polls conducted by five “selected national public opinion polling organizations.” In recent years, this typically excludes all but the Democratic and Republican nominees. The last third-party candidate to qualify for the general election debates was the late Ross Perot, in 1992.

The determination for which candidates will participate in the first debate will be made after Labor Day 2020. No qualifying candidate has declined an invitation to participate in a major, televised debate since then-President Jimmy Carter passed on joining former California Gov. Ronald Reagan and then-Rep. John Anderson (R-Ill.), who was running as an independent, for a debate in September 1980.