State Representative Frank Moran introduced amendment #1277 “Improving Voting Access” to H.4600 that would make voting more accessible in Massachusetts by ending the disenfranchisement of voters who don’t return the municipal census and improving polling place accessibility by requiring periodic inspections.

Email your State Representative and ask them to cosponsor Rep Moran’s amendment before the House debates the matter during the week of April 22-26. Common Cause has set up an easy interface way to Email your State Representative.

Amendment # 1277 would do two things

Read the Entire Text of Amendment 1277 (PDF)

End the disenfranchisement of voters who don’t return the municipal census

Today, if a voter does not respond to the annual municipal census, they are punished by being placed on the inactive voter list. Massachusetts is one of the only states to punish voters this way.

The amendment would end this penalty — and ensure clean voter rolls the way other states do. Voters would be placed on the inactive voter list if:

• They changed their address with the U.S. Postal Service and didn’t change their registration or
• They are marked as a duplicate registration by the multistate Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).

This process would be automated to the extent possible to reduce the workload on local election officials. There would be no change to the municipal census itself, which is used to ensure local services and to populate the jury pool.

Improve polling place accessibility with periodic inspections

Voters with disabilities continue to face myriad obstacles to in-person voting – from physical inaccessibility to lack of functioning equipment inside polling locations.

This amendment would require the Secretary of Commonwealth to arrange inspection of all polling places and early voting sites at least once every four years to ensure compliance with federal and state disability accessibility laws.