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Leader Donato seeks changes to absentee-voter disability language and political designation rules
Summary
Representative Leader Donato told the Joint Committee on Election Laws he supports H.822 to remove the word “physical” from the absentee-voter disability definition and H.824 to raise the threshold for creating political designations from 50 to 500 signatures and allow administrative dissolution if thresholds are not met.
Representative Leader Donato told the Joint Committee on Election Laws he supports two bills: H.822, which would amend the absentee‑voting law by removing the word “physical” from the disability requirement in the statute cited by the committee, and H.824, which would change how political designations are created and maintained.
On H.822, Donato said the Massachusetts Office on Disability and regional disability‑rights offices have determined that the current statutory wording is inconsistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act and could be subject to litigation; deleting the word “physical” would broaden eligibility consistent with federal disability protections.
On H.824, Donato described the current threshold for establishing a political designation as 50 registered‑voter signatures and said that low threshold has produced more than 25 political designations in Massachusetts, many with very small registration totals. The bill would require 500 signatures to create a designation and would create an administrative dissolution process if a designation fails to register at least 1% of total registered voters within two years.
Donato said the change would reduce proliferation of minor designations and add a mechanism for dissolution when a designation no longer maintains a minimum level of support.
Committee members did not vote on either bill at the hearing; supporters filed written testimony for the record and the committee invited further review and deliberation.
