Massachusetts and Virginia adopted policies that would make voter registration and voting accessible to more citizens this week.
Just in time for next year’s presidential election, Massachusetts launched its Online Voter Registration system. Citizens can now register to vote or update their address or party affiliation online. The Commonwealth is one of 28 states to have online registration on the books and it is the 21st to implement the policy. (Find out if your state has an online registration policy here.)
“We think it’s removing one more administrative impediment … to registering to vote,” said Secretary of State William Galvin in a NECN report.
In Virginia, Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that ex-felons would no longer be barred from voting due to outstanding court fees, a requirement that the governor likened to a “poll tax.”
“We have forced these men and women to battle a complicated and bewildering tangle of red tape to reach the voting booth, and too often we still turn them away,” said McAuliffe in a statement Tuesday. “These men and women will still be required to pay their costs and fees, but their court debts will no longer serve as a financial barrier to voting, just as poll taxes did for so many years in Virginia.”
Virginia is home of one of the strictest felon voting laws in the nation, disenfranchising citizens until they are pardoned by the governor. McAuliffe’s also announced that his administration has restored civil rights for more than 8,250 Virginians in the 17 months that he has been in office, surpassing any previous governor’s restoration efforts during their 4-year terms.