Bring same-day voter registration to Massachusetts
Voting “yes” in November would help students across the state be able to vote in future elections
On Nov. 8, 2022, I brought blankets and socks to a line of students waiting to register and vote outside the University of Michigan art museum. Even though it was 40 degrees and dark, students waited from when the polls closed at 8 p.m. to as late as 2 a.m. that night — all so they could vote in the midterm election.
This experience stands in sharp contrast to my and my co-writer Alexa’s experience at MIT, where we race the clock to try — and often fail — to help our friends register to vote before the Massachusetts deadline.
In Massachusetts, voters must register at least ten days before the election, leaving renters, students, or anyone who recently moved to the state unable to vote at their new address. The 2026 Massachusetts primaries fall on Sept. 1, which is notably the day that an estimated 70% of Boston leases turn over. This makes it essentially impossible for the thousands of people who move in that day to vote at their new address, both because of a logistic conflict with their move and because their leases must have started before that date to count as proof of residency.
And, because Massachusetts’s legislature is dominated by one party, many important state elections are decided by the primaries in Massachusetts. State legislators control much of housing and transportation policy, two issues which drastically affect graduate students, yet their seats are often decided by an election which cannot logistically accommodate students and renters. How is this fair?
Even when elections have not taken place on Sept. 1, we’ve seen how this deadline has turned away people who would have otherwise voted if they had had more time to register. Studies show that same-day voter registration increases voter turnout by 3–6%. This is especially important for students and young people, who vote at much lower rates than older demographic groups. 24 states and D.C. allow voters to have same-day registration. Why can’t we?
This year on Nov. 3, we can change this. Ballots will include an important question: Should Massachusetts allow same-day voter registration? Same-day voter registration gives power back to renters, students and young people. We’ve seen firsthand the impact of same-day registration in Michigan, as well as the pitfalls of Massachusetts’s ten-day cutoff. Whatever else you vote for this November, vote “yes” on same-day voter registration.
Alexa Gomberg and Abby Feyrer are PhD students at MIT and members of the Graduate Student Council External Affairs Board.