Testimony submitted to the Joint Committee on Election Laws

S.348 & H.651

An Act Ensuring the Freedom to Vote in the Commonwealth

October 7, 2009

By, Carole Stanley Pelchat, Vice President and Program and Action Chair

The League of Women Voters of Massachusetts urges you to support S. 348 and H.651, Acts to Ensure the Freedom to Vote in the Commonwealth.

Since its origin in 1920, the League of Women Voters has fought to protect and enhance voting rights for all its citizens, and the right of every citizen to vote has been a basic League principle, and we do consider it a “right,” not a “privilege.” Its members in Massachusetts and across the country have worked to establish the Voting Rights Act of 1965, The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002. At Convention in 2004, the LWVUS determined that in order to ensure integrity and voter confidence in election, it would support the implementation of voting systems and procedures that are “secure, accurate, recountable and accessible.” At LWVUS Convention in 2006, these criteria were further clarified to only include voting systems so designed that:

• They employed voter-verifiable paper ballot or other paper record

• The voter could observe the ballot accurately reflected his/her intent

• Such verification takes place while the voter is in the process of voting

• The paper ballot is used for audits and recounts

• The vote totals can be verified by an independent hand count Routine audits of the paper ballot can be conducted in every election[1]

The LWVMA has built on these efforts to protect the right to vote of every citizen. It has supported legislation and procedures to expand voter registration, as well as high school registration drives and to remove administrative obstacles to voting and/or registration. It has helped pass legislation that allows 16 & 17-year-old students to work at the polls and has worked to reduce the influence of Political Action Committees and lobbyist donors. We were instrumental in creating the Massachusetts Voters’ Bill of Rights and the Massachusetts Voters’ Bill of Responsibilities, which are now posted at all polling sites across the state. We have supported the passage of laws that allow election-registration, require a paper ballot, establish routine election audits, provide additional support for disabled voters, and a Constitutional Amendment to allow unrestricted absentee ballots, and we have opposed the passage of laws that expand voter identification requirements.[2]

H. 651 and S. 348 is an omnibus bill that will bring the Massachusetts voting system into the 21^st century.   Please work to move this bill out of this Committee with a positive vote and past it in the General Court. Thank you for your time and consideration.