There are various types of barriers facing voters including photo ID requirements, voting booth availability, the flexibility of poll hours, and the availability of time off from work with pay for voting. Some states even have financial penalties for the violation of deadlines or rules related to registration lists. Online voter registration, absentee voting, and early voting are some policies that clearly are shown to ease voting. Massachusetts is taking important steps to improve mail-in and early voting. This article published in GBH is written by Mike Deehan. Here is an excerpt:
The Legislature is poised this session to permanently adopt the mail-in and early voting system that was put in place during the pandemic, hearing from advocates and state election officials Tuesday on how best to turn the emergency experiment into law.
Beyond codifying mail-in voting, bills heard by the Election Laws committee would also allow voter registration on election day, institute more thorough post-election audits and provide voting information to prisoners eligible to vote.
“It would make the mail-in-voting and early voting expansions made during COVID, make those permanent, but would also bring same day registration to Massachusetts,” said Geoff Foster from Common Cause Massachusetts in an interview. “It would make improvements to our election infrastructure, like updating the automatic voter registration law from 2018.”
Continue reading here. Also see related Democracy Chronicles articles like those on Voting Methods, Direct Democracy, and definitely check out our main Voting Methods section.
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