Massachusetts top court to weigh 20-day voter registration cutoff

[March 06, 2018]    BOSTON (Reuters) - The top court in Massachusetts will hear arguments on Tuesday in a lawsuit that challenges a state requirement that voters register 20 days before an election.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will weigh whether to reverse a ruling in July by a lower-court judge holding that the registration cutoff violates the state's constitution and affects thousands of residents' right to vote.

In the July ruling, Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins said while the state could pass laws to ensure voter qualifications and election security, evidence presented at a non-jury trial showed no such necessity for the registration cutoff.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in 2016 by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two organizations, Chelsea Collaborative and MassVote, and several individual registered voters.

Their lawsuit contended that a 1993 voter registration statute that imposed the 20-day requirement unconstitutionally denied thousands of otherwise qualified individuals the right to vote.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, a Democrat who oversees the state's elections, appealed the ruling to the state's top court, arguing that the 20-day rule did not impose a severe burden on voting rights.

The state in a brief argues that the rule was a reasonable means to help ascertain voter qualifications and conduct orderly elections. The brief said 33 other states have deadlines requiring voters to register seven to 30 days before elections.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

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