Voter mishaps highlight need for same-day registration, advocates say

Instead of an “I voted” sticker, some Massachusetts residents left the polls with nothing but frustration on Election Day after clerical errors or other mishaps took them off the voter rolls, renewing calls for same-day registration.

“Twenty-one other states have Election Day registration. It’s nothing new, groundbreaking or revolutionary. It’s in red states and blue states and it allows voters to have their votes counted even if there are problems with their registration due to glitches, voter error or town-clerk error,” said Pam Wilmot of Common Cause MA.

Advocacy groups have been trying for decades to pass legislation that would OK same-day registration, which Wilmot says would provide a “fail-safe” to ensure everyone’s vote is counted even if problems with a voter’s registration presents on Election Day.

Erin Kneeland said she was twice turned away from the polls — once during early voting and again on Tuesday when poll workers said the lifelong Massachusetts resident wasn’t registered to vote. The 26-year-old Jamaica Plain resident moved from her native Somerville a year and a half ago. When she went to the Registry of Motor Vehicles to update the address on her license, she said they said her voter information would be updated, too.

“I’m incredibly frustrated and a little concerned that other people who thought they were registered or who had previously registered also didn’t get the opportunity to vote,” Kneeland said.

Wilmot said she’s aware of at least one other case in Massachusetts similar to Kneeland’s that was reported Tuesday via a national voter-complaint hotline.

The RMV rolled out a new automatic-registration policy related to voter registration in January that Department of Transportation spokeswoman Judith Reardon Riley said was designed to streamline the process when people renew or apply for a license.

In cases where a voter’s registration is disputed, Secretary of State spokeswoman Debra O’Malley said local election workers are supposed to offer provisional ballots — these trigger an investigation into the voter’s registration history, she said. Issues like the one that confronted Kneeland on Election Day are “common,” she said.

“There are a number of factors here. Much of this will be resolved now that we have automatic registration but the bottom line is that voters should have been offered provisional ballots so we could look into this for them,” O’Malley said.

Neither Boston nor the secretary of state’s office could provide a number for how many provisional ballots were doled out on Election Day — cities and towns have until Friday to finish counting the ballots.

A Boston spokeswoman said the city was looking into the claim.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2VKLsbX