NAACP v. Galvin (Massachusetts)

On May 15, 2012, Project Vote and its partner voting rights groups filed suit in federal district court in Boston, charging the Secretary of the Commonwealth and the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) with violating their federally mandated responsibilities pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) to offer all public assistance clients the opportunity to register to vote. Plaintiffs added MassHealth and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) to the lawsuit in 2014, alleging similar violations. Massachusetts’ violations severely limited the opportunities that its low-income residents have to register to vote.

Plaintiffs include the NAACP New England Area Conference (NAACP-NEAC), and New England United for Justice (NEU4J), represented by attorneys from Project Vote, Dēmos, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, as well as the law firm of Ropes & Gray LLP.

On July 5, 2012, the parties reached an interim agreement obligating the Commonwealth to take immediate steps while the parties continued settlement negotiations: mailing voter registration applications to clients who may have been denied the opportunity to register; conducting community voter registration outreach; broadcasting public service announcements regarding the availability of registration forms and assistance; and providing training, modifying procedures, and increasing oversight regarding voter registration services. The parties failed to reach a settlement by December 31, 2012 and litigation resumed.

On March 20, 2015, a comprehensive settlement was finalized in which DTA agreed to ensure that hundreds of thousands of eligible Massachusetts citizens are provided opportunities to register to vote in compliance with the NVRA. The settlement concluded three years of litigation over DTA’s voter registration services and procedures, including extensive document discovery, depositions of numerous DTA employees and officials, substantial motions practice, development of expert testimony to support plaintiffs’ claims, and months of comprehensive settlement negotiations. The agreement will be enforced for three years and contains several significant requirements, including:

• Automatic distribution of voter registration applications to citizens applying for public assistance as well as to those renewing public assistance benefits or changing their addresses.
• Assistance in several different languages to clients while completing voter registration applications and delivery of voter registration applications to local election officials.
• Regular oversight and reporting to ensure that DTA employees always provide the voter registration services required by federal law.

The agreement required the Commonwealth to pay Project Vote and its co-counsel $675,000 in legal fees, as authorized by the NVRA.

In June 2015, Plaintiffs obtained a similarly broad agreement with MassHealth and the Secretary of the Commonwealth and remaining defendants. MassHealth agreed to provide a voter registration application and offer assistance to each individual who applies, renews, or changes his or her address in connection with Medicaid benefits. MassHealth will also provide regular training for its employees and monitor NVRA compliance, and will reprogram the online health benefits application jointly used by MassHealth and the Massachusetts Health Connector to provide voter registration opportunities.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth agreed to review DTA and MassHealth voter registration policies and training materials, participate in training, and monitor registration activities of each of the public assistance agencies. The resulting voter registration data will be posted regularly on the Secretary’s website.

EOHHS, which oversees DTA, MassHealth and several other agencies with voter registration responsibilities, agreed to send an annual notice to each such agency, reminding it of its NVRA responsibilities.