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Bostonians will be able to vote early this fall

The city will staff nine early-voting sites between Oct. 24 and Nov. 4 to let voters cast ballots without waiting in line on Election Day this year, Mayor Walsh's office announced today.

The state legislature approved the novel-for-Massachusetts idea of early voting in 2014.

Each of the city's nine city-council districts will have one site open 9-5 on weekdays between those two dates at which registered voters can vote early, instead of waiting for the polls to open on Nov. 8.

City officials are currently looking at exactly where to place the early polling stations. The Boston Election Commission will then set locations this summer. The mayor's office estimates a $670,000 cost for the expanded voting.

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Comments

...hot damn, that's really amazing news, and the Walsh camp deserves major kudos for making this happen. Single-day voting is one of the largest factors contributing to voter suppression, and is a plague on our democracy. I'd love to see this plan, plus easy absentee voting, everywhere.

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Walsh clearly sees some advantage to Hillary Clinton in doing this. He wouldn't be likely to care otherwise.

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Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will win the Commonwealth by a huge margin. Trump would likely do better than Cruz in this state but either way, MA is deep in the bag for the blue team.

Marty might be thinking about other races or setting a precedent but the decision isn't to help Clinton -- she needs no help from Boston.

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Making fraud easier too.

The integrity of our elections are a joke compared to standard practices in Europe, Canada and Mexico.

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women and Blacks vote.....Foxophile

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Yes, 31 cases of voter fraud found against over 1 billion legitimate votes. What an epidemic! Its easier to get a gun in this country than it is to vote is some of our less civilized states.

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I take it that you haven't bothered to register to vote yourself, or you would realize what the document requirements are and how voting early makes no difference for those.

Once you are registered, you can vote. Voting on Wednesday instead of Tuesday or Friday makes no difference at all!

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I love how Walsh always plasters his name all over any positive news.

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Every other politician ever? On the scale of things to complain about Walsh, this had to rank pretty low.

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They never had their name on ANYthing that came from that building.

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This should have been done a long time ago. Mad props to Marty on this.

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My (paltry) understanding of the 2014 law includes
- It was passed in late 2014
- Before the law, early voting was not legal/possible in MA
- Early Voting only applies to even-numbered November eletions

Thus, November 2016 is literally the first time it would be possible for a city to do this.

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Does the law merely allow for early voting in municipalities or require early voting?

If the latter (which is what I thought the law was), then the only news today was that Boston announced (part of) its plans to do it, no different than any other part of the state come November.

If it's the former, then yeah, someone in City Hall deserves credit.

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I think you're right. The city (and every other city/town) is required to do this. See MGL CH. 54, Sec 25B:

The election officers and registrars of every city or town shall allow any qualified voter, as defined in section 1 of chapter 51, to cast a ballot for any biennial state election during the early voting period as set forth in this section

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M.G.L ch 111 § 25B. (a) The election officers and registrars of every city or town shall allow any qualified voter, as defined in section 1 of chapter 51, to cast a ballot for any biennial state election during the early voting period as set forth in this section including, but not limited to, any city or town election held at the same time.
....
(f) Each city and town shall establish an early voting site that shall include the election office for the city or town; provided, however, that if the city or town determines that the office is unavailable or unsuitable for early voting, the registrars of each city or town shall identify and provide for an alternative centrally-located, suitable and convenient public building within each city or town as an early voting site. A city or town may also provide for additional early voting sites at the discretion of the registrars for that city or town. Each early voting site shall be accessible to persons with disabilities.

By offering nine additional voting sites the city is going beyond the basic requirements of the law.

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I agree with the comment above mine, the law only required that it be available at Boston City Hall. Obviously the folks at Boston City Hall realized that having to trek all the way to City Hall to vote is not all that terribly convenient so they added new locations across the city.

So they get no credit for the first location but all the additional locations they get credit for.

It was a wise move because if it is really easy for people on Beacon Hill to vote early but very difficult for people in Mattapan to vote early that could open up questions of fairness and access to the polls.

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I thought under the absentee voting law, you could always appear at City Hall and vote a week or two early? Granted, it wasn't in the districts like this plan but I'm pretty sure it was an option.

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For absentee (even in person), you had to assert that you were going to be out of town or physically unable to vote on election day.

Obviously no one was checking to see if you really had a surgery scheduled, but "early voting" does not require any sort of cause, just a desire to vote early.

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Once I tried to get an absentee ballot, and the lady at the Elections office asked me very sternly if I was going to be out of town on election day. So yeah, they don't check, but you really do have to lie out loud.

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Can a (registered) resident vote at any one of the nine district locations, or will we be required to only vote in the district where we live?

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MA will vote Clinton anyway, so in her own words, "What difference does it make?"

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Ballots can have more than one thing on them. The more you know!

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One race UHub readers will be following closely.

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At least the Presidential race will be a no-brainer.

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Does the law not allow or require early voting for state primary elections?

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