National Voter Registration Act Settlement

The Lawyers’ Committee and member firm Ropes & Gray along with Demos, Project Vote and the national Lawyers’ Committee entered a settlement with the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) that will ensure that hundreds of thousands of eligible Massachusetts citizens are provided opportunities to register to vote in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Section 7 of the NVRA mandates that DTA public assistance offices offer voter registration services to eligible citizens. Based on the Commonwealth’s failure to comply with this federal mandate, plaintiffs NAACP-New England Area Conference and New England United for Justice filed suit against the DTA, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, and the Secretary of the Commonwealth in May 2012. The press release of the settlement can be found here and news coverage can be found here and here.