Massachusetts Committee Hears Testimony on Election Day Registration Ballot Petition

BOSTON — March 31, 2026 — Massachusetts lawmakers heard competing testimony on an Election Day registration ballot initiative that would let eligible voters register and cast a ballot on Election Day. The Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions, co-chaired by Representative Alice Peisch and Senator Barry Feingold, took no vote at the March 31 hearing, which fulfilled a constitutional requirement under Article 48 before petition H5001 can advance toward the November 2026 ballot. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin testified in support, calling the reform overdue and noting that most of the roughly 5,100 provisional ballots cast in the 2024 statewide election were rejected — a problem, he said, Election Day registration would largely correct. Northeastern University Professor Costas Panagopoulos told the committee the reform typically raises turnout three to seven percentage points, citing Minnesota's 296,000 Election Day registrations in 2024, while MIT Professor Charles Stewart III, who found 62 percent of Massachusetts respondents support the concept, warned that implementation would require careful staffing and database planning across the state's 351 municipalities. The Massachusetts Municipal Association, represented by Brookline Town Clerk Ben Kaufman, did not oppose the policy outright but urged the legislature to reduce existing clerk workloads before adding new mandates, noting in-person early-voting participation had dropped below 5 percent in recent primaries even as staffing requirements remained unchanged.