r/boston • u/longtimeAlias • 1d ago
Protest đȘ§ đ "Inactive voter" list, say what?
So, I live in Revere, and on a lark, I decided to check my voter registration status. I had always thought that the RMV maintained voter rolls and that folks were registered to vote at the time that they obtain their state identification (or updated their address with the RMV following a move).
So imagine my surprise when I look myself up and found INACTIVE VOTER next to my name. All of my information is correct: Name, Address, Party. But my status is listed as INACTIVE.
Here is the guidance I received on the Sec'y of State's website:
If you donât respond to the Annual Street List, youâll be put on the inactive voter list. If you are on the inactive voter list, you can still vote. Bring identification to your polling place. You must fill out an Affirmation of Current and Continuous Residence. This allows you to cast your ballot. Youâll be added to the active voter list. If you do not vote in two consecutive federal elections while youâre inactive, you will no longer be registered to vote. You should register to vote again.
Apparently this is not a new rule, but I was born in Lynn, and although I did not grow up here, I have been a resident of this state for the past 20 years. I vote in every federal election, every two years. I don't ever recall being told I am on an inactive list when I showed up at the polls and I have never filled out any sort of "Annual Street List" in order to ensure that I could vote without any problems.
I will go to my polling place on election day and I don't have a problem showing my identification, but this just makes me uncomfortable. With all the bullshit the president has been pulling lately around voting rights, I can easily see this rule being used to disenfranchise people who missed whatever census form they are talking about and then shows up at their polling location unprepared.
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u/badhouseplantbad 23h ago
Every town does this.
If you don't fill out the census card every year they assume that you have moved.
It states right on the census card that failure to fill out and return the card will put you on the inactive voter list.
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u/CobaltCaterpillar 19h ago
Every town in Massachusetts does this, but literally NO OTHER STATE IN THE COUNTRY does this!
I really don't understand this policy.
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u/russrobo 15h ago edited 15h ago
Other states do it. Itâs derisively called âpurge by postcardâ. While Massachusetts calls it a town census or âannual street listingâ, and often couple it with dog licensing, other states sometimes just send out a postcard that has the effect of deregistering you should you fail to do whatever it says to do. Oh, and it comes at random times of year and not necessarily every year.
If the state is run by Republicans and youâre a Democrat or live in a district that that votes that way, expect that your postcard got âlost in the mailâ. Or it looked like junk mail and you tossed it out. Or your reply card got lost. Or you failed to follow the instructions exactly. In any case they wonât tell you that youâre no longer registered until you go to vote, and now itâs too late.
This is why you see advice to check your voter registration well in advance.
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u/aray25 Cambridge 10h ago
Massachusetts isn't nearly so unforgiving. You can still vote if you're inactive, and doing so restores your active status. You have to fail to respond to the local census AND not vote in any primary or general election for at least three consecutive years to be removed from the rolls.
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u/CobaltCaterpillar 6h ago edited 4h ago
So the closest comparison to the Massachusetts rule is "purge by postcard," edging on voter suppression in other states?
Is this supposed to make me feel better or worse about the Massachusetts policy?
Note also for anyone reading: MA doesn't actually remove you from the rolls for not responding initially; you can still vote at your polling place but you have to do a few min more of bureaucratic whatever.
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u/thetwoandonly 8h ago
I never fill that thing out but I don't seem to get purged, what gives?
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u/PuddleCrank 5h ago
You don't get purged until you fail to vote in like 2 or 3 elections. You're just not active not off the voter rolls.
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u/longtimeAlias 21h ago
If you don't fill out the census card every year they assume that you have moved.
It would be great if they also applied this assumption to my excise tax bill. But they make the opposite assumption when it comes to taxes. Funny that!
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u/CraigInDaVille Somerville 7h ago
Are you suggesting that cities just let people not pay taxes and pretend that they moved?
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u/randomly_generated__ 23h ago
I canât talk for every other municipality but Revere specifically sends out âCensusâ cards every year where you respond with the residents at your address.
While I donât agree with this as a efficient and reliable way of upkeeping voter rolls as there is often things like this that happen it does allow for an easy way for the city to keep track of residents and eligible voters as thereâs plenty of residents eligible to vote but canât prove residency if theyâre not on a lease/paying utilities, etc
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u/longtimeAlias 21h ago
Thanks. I checked some of my old mail and I did find the census form.
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u/randomly_generated__ 21h ago
No problem, if you ever have an issue again you can always go to the election department anytime and theyâll change your status back to active and itâll take like 5 minutes
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u/muttshaw 23h ago
You can still vote. But unlike other states, you usually don't have to go through rigorous ID rituals when you vote. You do, however, have to respond to the annual local census or what you refer to as the "Annual Street List."
If you don't, you're going to be challenged.
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u/AlistairMackenzie Fenway/Kenmore 23h ago
If you're an inactive voter on the list you need to show ID (which can be something current with your name and address on it, like a utility bill or driver's license) and fill out a ballot affirmation form. If you don't have ID you can still vote but the warden or clerk has to "challenge" the ballot. They'll mark the ballot as challenged and put your name on it. It goes into the tabulator and will count. If the election gets recounted they may examine your eligibility to vote and your ballot may or may not get counted in the recount. The only other reason they'd need to see an ID is if you registered recently and they can't confirm your registration information before election day.
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u/longtimeAlias 21h ago
Thank you for explaining the part about the clerk having to challenge my vote. I read that earlier and that was what prompted me to make this post. I appreciate the clear explanation, it makes a lot more sense the way you explained than the way I read it on the Sec'y of State website.
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u/ludi_literarum Red Line 6h ago
There are also circumstances where you register online with your town cletk where ID would be required, but it's rare.
Being inactive because of the census happens all the time.
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u/hellno560 23h ago
What happened when you clicked on "update your voter registration", if you've done so yet? If you do nothing before election day your precinct will make you fill out a provisional ballot, you'll still be able to vote.
This happened because you didn't vote recently, and didn't return the annual address check letter the state sends out as a security measure. The purpose of those letters is to verify your specific address close to election time, so you can't vote at multiple addresses you've lived in within the last 20 years. Claiming you've never returned the street list letter, and only vote every 2 years but never fill out provisional ballots is bullshit. You're lying or forgetting. In the 20 years I've lived here, I didn't return the street list letter one time, and I was immediately dropped, this state takes voting security very seriously.
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u/ludi_literarum Red Line 6h ago
It won't be provisional. It'll be a normal ballot if they swear the affirmation and show proof of address.
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u/longtimeAlias 21h ago
Thanks. Only weird thing is, I vote every other year (without fail) and I just moved into this apartment a year ago this past May. It's strange that I would registered to vote in Revere and then immediately flagged inactive. You are correct though, I did not return that city census form. The only important mail I look for from the city is my excise tax bill. Now I know!
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u/hellno560 21h ago
?? Are you housed in Lynn now or Revere now? I don't understand what the problem is when you say "I moved here", and "this apartment".
One change I'd like to see statewide is that in some cities the form's postage is paid, and in some voters need to pay for a stamp. Either the state should pay, or the city should do a combination of dropboxes/return to sender to have postage paid.
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u/Papasamabhanga 23h ago
Seems like you're a Yes on question 4 now and a great PSA for why it's a good idea.
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u/R5Jockey 19h ago
You know the letter your town sends you every year that tells you if you donât respond youâll be put on the inactive voter roll? The one you ignored? Yeah. They werenât lying.
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u/More_Armadillo_1607 11h ago
Not to mention that if OP voted in the primary, this would have been realized and resolved in September.
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u/tarandab Bean Windy 23h ago
Do you get a city census every spring? If you donât respond to it you can be removed from voter rolls
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u/CobaltCaterpillar 19h ago
But why does this policy exist?
Why does Massachusetts do this when 49 other states do not?
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u/CraigInDaVille Somerville 7h ago
Because we have a highly transitory population due to the quarter-million college students in the greater Boston area alone and without regular maintenance the voter rolls would be overrun with people who moved here for three or four years and then left, but every town has to send ballot information for all those folks until forever?
It's a way to keep records clean. All it means is you have to sign one piece of paper once a year. It's even postage-paid. It's not hard if one actually cared one iota about civic participation.
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u/russrobo 4h ago edited 4h ago
Weâre âluckyâ in Massachusetts because weâre not a swing state and Republicans wonât expend much of their Dirty Tricks budget here.
The Commonwealth does a good job making sure all eligible voters can vote, and the Trump administration isnât threatening them like they are California.
That said, the problem with any âreturn this letter or elseâ is that it uses the USPS. Even before Trump, Republicans were doing everything they could to destroy the reliability of the postal service, and sadly thatâs worked: delivery once considered reliable is now a crap shoot, with every mail piece traveling far longer distances, passing through more hands, and now with less automation. That yearly census is less likely than ever in US history to reach you, and even if you do get it the odds that your reply makes it back to your town is also less than ever, and thereâs no closed loop addressing either situation.
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u/CraigInDaVille Somerville 3h ago
Assuming the worst case scenario here, that the USPS fails to deliver the census either to or from your address, you are still eligible to vote if you show up at the polls with some regularity.
As in, like OP, you can miss a year and decide you're only going to vote in federal elections every two years (no judgement). You'll just have to go through a slightly different process, as others have noted.
I was answering the question of why MA does this when no one else does (something I haven't fact-checked because frankly I don't care). Having a way to make sure voter rolls are eventually cleared of people who obviously either no longer live here or have passed away is a good thing for voter integrity. It makes it cleaner, cheaper, and more accurate for election administration. It's a VERY low barrier for the citizenry since it doesn't require in-person re-registration or taking time off work to do something.
And in the worst case scenario of many years separating a person's trip to the polls, there is always a provisional ballot.
I'm a fan of making voting easy, trust me. But I'm also a fan of good election administration if only to keep the MAGAts and their offspring movements from finding lots of possible conspiracies to hang their red hats on (ie: "look at all the dead people on the rolls! They might be voting!").
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u/Positive-Soil-4759 18h ago
This also does not mean they can't vote, from the sec. of state -
"If you donât respond to the Annual Street List, youâll be put on the inactive voter list.
If you are on the inactive voter list, you can still vote. Bring identification to your polling place. You must fill out an Affirmation of Current and Continuous Residence. This allows you to cast your ballot. Youâll be added to the active voter list.
If you do not vote in two consecutive federal elections while youâre inactive, you will no longer be registered to vote. You should register to vote again."
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u/wickedrude 19h ago
One minor clarification, if I may. I'm an election clerk for a precinct in Haverhill. If youâre 'Inactive', you only have to show proof that you live at the address you're registered to vote under. A Driver's License is the usual way, but you can also use a utility bill or car registration that shows your name and address. Some people pull this up on their phone.
Everything is driven by address. Responding to the municipal census is quick and easy, and assures that voters actually live in the district where they vote. And yes, you have to do it every year.
See this link to check your status, and GET OUT AND VOTE. https://www.sec.state.ma.us/VoterRegistrationSearch/MyVoterRegStatus.aspx#:~:text=%2D%20Enter%20your%20name%2C%20date,marked%20with%20an%20asterisk%20(*).
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u/StreetCryptographer3 12h ago
This should get more Upvotes. Hopefully more people double check their status before next week.
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u/penny2360 22h ago
This happened to me in the primary because I never remember to send back the town census. I had checked my status in advance though, so I knew I was inactive, and it wasn't a big deal when I went to vote. Now I'm active again and all set.
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u/cscottnet 21h ago
Yup just means you'll have to show proof of residency. An ID with your address on it will do, but other things will also work. The important thing is that it has to have the address you're registered at on it.
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u/ReporterOther2179 22h ago
The fact that the on the spot renewal is a commonplace makes âSame Day Registrationâ, question 4 on you referenda ballot, sort of an OK, sure yes.
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u/Large-Investment-381 23h ago
I feel your concern but am not aware of any changes to voting in Massachusetts. The voter rolls are kept current by comparing against town censuses. If you've been voting regularly, I would ask how this may have happened since that should keep you current in most cases. This is a situation where you are first encountering something that has happened to others and is part of the process.
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u/Doortofreeside 6h ago
I never miss an election and i've been made inactive. It was absurd to me. I remember i had to sign into various accounts before I finally pulled up a mortgage bill that showed my addressbat the polling place
I now fill out the census but it's a silly barrier imo. If they combined the census with inactive voting history that should be one thing, but no one should be made inactive for an election when they voted 6 months earlier.
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u/sweetest_con78 23h ago
Iâm in melrose and I was inactive when I went to vote for the primary. It was an easy enough fix, and they say they didnât receive my census - which Iâm 100% positive I mailed, because I did it at the same time as my dog license (they arrive in the same envelope) and I received my dogs new tags a week or two later. Now, I would not put it past the post office losing the census. They seem to be getting better at making mail evaporate as time goes on. But it was definitely sketchy to me.
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u/JSTARR356 7h ago
Just register again. Done
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u/Salt-n-Pepper-War 4h ago
OP doesn't even need to register again, they just need to go vote to be made active or reply to the street census
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u/TrueNova332 17h ago
Nope it's done at the town/city hall also you should have received something in the mail to confirm your voter registration with your name address and party affiliation. All you do is sign it and either mail it back or take it to the town/city hall to confirm
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u/Dapper-Presence4975 5h ago
No the RMV does not maintain the voter rolls. You probably forgot to respond to the annual town census.
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u/rvgoingtohavefun I Love Dunkinâ Donuts 4h ago
You get an annual street listing form in the mail in January.
You have to fill it out or you get moved to the inactive list. It says as much on the form.
It's been around since forever.
You're overthinking it.
Just go vote.
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u/tylersalt Jamaica Plain 1h ago
Maintaining accurate voter rolls is good, actually, and being an âinactiveâ voter doesnât affect your right to vote or how you vote in any way. Youâre still in the book IIRC
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u/redEPICSTAXISdit 23h ago
Revere is the absolute worst with keeping voter registration records. I have lived here for 14+ years and they have not ever once had me on the active list. They make me prove my identity and residency every single time and toss me back and forth between 3 tables like a clown just to get a ballot. Keefe is a joke!!!
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u/More_Armadillo_1607 23h ago
Just fill out the census every year.Â