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The VOTES Act will expand voting rights in Massachusetts.

Governor Baker just recently signed the VOTES Act into law.

The VOTES Act will expand voting options here in the Commonwealth, but it will also make voting easier for active service members.

22News explains a portion of the VOTES Act law dealing with voting from behind bars.

The Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments Wednesday related the Republican Party’s challenge to the new law making early voting and vote-by-mail permanent features of Massachusetts elections.

The state’s highest court has denied an effort by the state Republican party to block election officials from putting into effect the state’s new mail-in and early voting law.

This was the first election under the VOTES Act, which expanded early, and mail-in voting options but voting in-person was still the most popular approach.

On Thursday the State Senate filed a massive voting expansion bill titled The Votes Act.

The Justice Department announced on Monday that it would monitor election sites in 24 different states around the country on Tuesday to ensure compliance with voting rights laws. “Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Division has regularly monitored elections in the field in jurisdictions around the country to […]

As of Friday, about 250,000 people had requested, filled out and returned mail-in ballots for the Sept. 6 state primaries, Galvin’s office said.

On Thursday, the House followed the Senate’s lead and voted to pass an election reform package. Now it needs to be signed by the Governor to become law.

The Supreme Judicial Court on Monday rejected the challenge to the new law making early voting and vote-by-mail permanent features of Massachusetts elections and has cleared Secretary of State William Galvin to begin sending ballot applications to voters this month.

By the time Tuesday’s primary rolled around, many Massachusetts voters had already casted their votes, through mail and by early voting. Governor Baker signed the VOTES act into law in June, which permanently expanded no-excuse mail-in voting and early voting options.

The state primary just three weeks away and the state is reminding residents to not wait to send in mail-in ballots.

Supporters of the idea of allowing people to register and vote on Election Day in Massachusetts cast the measure as a “common sense” compromise lawmakers can include in an omnibus voting reform bill currently under consideration on Beacon Hill.

When it comes to voting on expanding voting options in the state, the House and Senate have different priorities and that was made clear by legislative leaders earlier this week.

The Justice Department announced on Monday that it would monitor election sites in 24 different states around the country on Tuesday to ensure compliance with voting rights laws.

A major hearing took place in the legislature Wednesday, causing a little bit of tension on Beacon Hill.

People could be fined for not voting in general elections if a bill recently introduced into Congress becomes law.

A total of 1,053,977 ballots were cast in the state primary last week, with more than half of those coming through the mail or early voting.

If state representatives want to avoid allowing mail-in voting and expanded early voting permission to lapse next month, they will need to find a way to secure a bipartisan agreement within the chamber.

Bernice King, the CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., this week blasted Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) after she said that the former civil rights leader would have been an “American First” Republican. “What you share here is false and […]

On this Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Vice President Kamala Harris is calling for voting rights action, as she urges the Senate to pass legislation. Harris and other lawmakers say it would be an insult to what the late MLK Jr. stood for if the legislation does not pass.

Less than two weeks out from the state primaries, Gov. Charlie Baker said he and First Lady Lauren Baker still haven’t decided whether they will vote in-person on Sept. 6 or take advantage of the early voting or mail-in voting options afforded under a law the governor signed in June.

During the worst of the pandemic, the Legislature authorized new voting protocols to make voting remotely and with limited personal contact easier. Those reforms, including voting-by-mail and expanded windows for early in-person voting, proved popular with voters, helping to set a record for ballots cast in 2020.

Earlier on Monday, state lawmakers discussed ways to enhance voting rights for incarcerated residents.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday described the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters as an attempted “coup.”

Harris is traveling to Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 57th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the day in 1965 when white state troopers attacked Black voting rights marchers attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The nation’s first female vice president — as well as the first African American and Indian American in the role— will speak at the site often referred to as hallowed ground in the fight for voting right for minority citizens.

The Massachusetts House voted Thursday night to punt voter registration reforms to Secretary of State William Galvin for further study, but Galvin doesn’t think the idea needs any further examination.

Vice President Harris expressed concern over threats to voting rights and democracy in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” aired on Sunday, during which she emphasized the importance of getting out the vote for the midterm elections. “Everything is on the line in these elections in just less than two months,” she said while […]

Nick Saban has joined several sports figures from his home state of West Virginia in urging Sen. Joe Manchin to support new voting rights legislation Democrats are trying to pass.

With the Legislature expected this week to extend voting-by-mail through mid-December, a more comprehensive election reform bill filed by Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem advanced out of committee Monday and Democratic leaders are eyeing action in the Senate as soon as the fall.

Vice President Harris marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday with a speech in which she urged lawmakers to honor the civil rights giant’s legacy by passing voting rights legislation.

Tuesday, a group of voting rights advocates held a virtual lobby day at the State House.

After seeing how voting by mail helped lead to a record number of voters casting ballots in the 2020 election, Secretary of State William Galvin said Tuesday he would file legislation this month to make the option a permanent fixture of the Massachusetts voting system.

On Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris summoned “the spirit of Selma,” delivering remarks to a sea of onlookers to commemorate the 57th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

Facing increasing demands from his progressive base, President Joe Biden is now going all out, pressuring Congress to move on voting rights, calling this a turning point for the nation.

BOSTON (State House News Service) – After seeing how voting by mail helped lead to a record number of voters casting ballots in the 2020 election, Secretary of State William Galvin said Tuesday he would file legislation this month to make the option a permanent fixture of the Massachusetts voting system. Galvin said his bill […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is convening global leaders Thursday to pledge strong new commitments to democracy, even as the U.S. itself is facing some of the gravest threats in years to its democratic traditions and institutions at home. As the president launches the administration’s inaugural Summit for Democracy, determined to show the world […]

Lawmakers are quietly eyeing changes to the formal counting of the Electoral College results, a year after dozens of Republicans, with then-President Trump‘s backing, challenged the outcome of the 2020 election in key states.

With the Senate on the verge of voting to make balloting by mail permanent and same-day registration a part of the electoral process in Massachusetts, advocates and some lawmakers are fighting to make sure the expansion of access clearly extends to eligible voters behind bars.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden expressed alarm at a “backward slide” of democracy around the globe on Thursday, calling on fellow world leaders to work with him to bolster democratic institutions as his administration grows increasingly concerned about China’s and Russia’s push for global influence. Biden’s comments to more than 100 leaders at the […]

Sports betting does not feature on Senate President Karen Spilka’s list of priorities for the fall lawmaking rush, and a string of high-profile incidents on the MBTA did not appear to move the Senate leader’s needle on transportation funding.

Boston election officials are pushing city councilors to move the city’s September preliminary election up by a week in anticipation of potential legislative action that could extend voting by mail provisions into the fall or make the option a permanent fixture in state election law.

Congress provided hundreds of millions of dollars to shore up the nation’s election system against cyberattacks and other threats, but roughly two-thirds of the money remained unspent just weeks before last year’s presidential election. A recently released federal report says the states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories had spent a little more than […]

The bill fights climate change and lowers some prescription drug prices, and it’s estimated to raise over $300 billion over ten years in new tax revenue. But Republicans stood unanimously opposed to the bill, calling it a reckless spending spree.

All eyes are still on Nevada, as the country and world waits to see which way the state will swing for the 2020 Presidential Election. Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske released a statement Thursday to give an update on the number of ballots that still have to be counted in Nevada.

The legislation, titled the Right to Contraception Act, passed in a 228-195 vote.

The Senate began debate Wednesday afternoon on a wide-reaching election reform package (S 2545) that seeks to make mail-in voting and expanded in-person early voting permanent, allow voters to register and cast a ballot on the same day, and improve ballot access for people with disabilities.

A group of lawmakers will work in the coming weeks to extend COVID-era elections reforms so they cover this spring’s municipal elections, then turn their attention toward securing a permanent overhaul to the state’s voting system.