Shira Schoenberg, MASSLIVE.COM
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance has settled a 2012 lawsuit with voting rights organizations by agreeing to distribute voter registration forms to people applying for public assistance, to help people complete the forms and to provide oversight to ensure that public assistance workers abide by the requirements of a federal voting rights law.
The Department of Transitional Assistance will also pay $675,000 in attorneys’ fees to the voting rights organizations.
“We hope that this will make a huge improvement in the voting and registration opportunities for low-income Massachusetts citizens,” said Catherine Flanagan, senior election counsel for the Washington D.C.-based Project Vote and one of the lawyers trying the case.
“The administration is pleased this matter was settled appropriately,” said Elizabeth Guyton, press secretary for Gov. Charlie Baker.
The lawsuit is still pending against Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin and Director of the Office of Medicaid Daniel Tsai. (The suit was originally brought against Sudders’ and Tsai’s predecessors in the administration of former Gov. Deval Patrick.)
In 2012, the New England Area Conference of the NAACP and New England United for Justice, both of which run voter registration drives for low-income people, sued the state, represented by lawyers from several voting rights organizations and the law firm Ropes & Gray.
The voting rights groups argued that the state was violating the National Voter Registration Act, a federal law passed in 1993 that requires state public assistance offices to ask a client if they want to register to vote each time a person applies or renews an application for benefits, such as food stamps or Medicaid, or changes their address.
Project Vote, Demos and Lawyers’ Committee Of Civil Rights Under Law have successfully litigated or settled nine similar cases in other states and have ongoing litigation against two states, according to Project Vote.
In Massachusetts, the voting rights groups found that in 2011, 94 percent of people applying for public assistance were not offered a voter registration application because a state worker listed them in DTA’s database as having identified themselves as registered to vote. But state voting records show that only 58 percent of eligible low-income citizens were registered.
Fewer than 1 percent of people receiving food stamps from DTA submitted voter registration applications. Investigators from the voting rights groups spoke to clients who received public assistance but were never offered the opportunity to register to vote. Public assistance offices had no signs or voter registration applications available at intake counters.
“Defendants’ failure to comply with the requirements of the NVRA prevents tens of thousands of low-income Massachusetts citizens from registering to vote, and so prevents them from exercising their right to vote,” the voting rights organizations wrote in their complaint.
The state agencies denied that they broke the law. In a letter to the voting rights groups, they wrote that they had begun distributing voter registration applications to people who left a particular form blank. They said they were conducting training and oversight to ensure compliance with the federal requirements.
The settlement with the Department of Transitional Assistance requires the department, among other things, to automatically distribute voter registration applications to any citizen applying to get or renew benefits or change their address; to provide assistance in English, Spanish and Chinese to anyone who needs help filling out the form; to designate statewide and local coordinators who will oversee compliance with the federal law; to make applications visible and available in office lobbies; and to provide workers with training related to the law. The provisions remain in place for three years.
Settlement negotiations were nearly completed under Patrick, a Democrat, though they concluded under Baker, a Republican. The Baker administration worked to reduce the cost of the settlement by $75,000, according to Baker officials. The settlement avoids having to send letters to all DTA recipients, which would have cost around $250,000.
Flanagan said negotiations are ongoing with the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office, MassHealth and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
“We always hope to short circuit litigation and arrive at settlement because it saves resources and generally gets the best results,” Flanagan said.
The lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts before Judge Denise Casper. Casper must still sign off on the settlement. Read More