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Voter Registration Deadlines Remain In Massachusetts While Judge's Ruling Is Appealed

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WAMC
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Despite a judge’s ruling, voters in Massachusetts will still need to register in advance to cast ballots in upcoming municipal elections.

A judge’s ruling that voter registration deadlines in Massachusetts are unconstitutional will not change the requirement that people be enrolled 20 days prior to next month’s preliminary election, according to Springfield Election Commissioner Gladys Oyola.

" The word is from the Secretary of State's office is that we are to continue business as usual," said Oyola.

The ACLU of Massachusetts which filed the lawsuit challenging the 20-day registration cutoff said the effect of the ruling is on hold while the case is on appeal.

The Secretary of State’s office contends doing away with the registration deadline will impose an expensive burden on local officials to conduct elections.

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.