Chelsea Collaborative v. Galvin

Chelsea Collaborative et al. v. William F. Galvin et al

No. SUCV2016-3354-D

No. 137737

Superior Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk

July 24, 2017

Filed July 25, 2017

FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND ORDER FOR JUDGMENT

Douglas H. Wilkins, Associate Justice.

MASS CONST. amend. art. III (" art. III" ) dictates that citizens who meet certain qualifications " shall be entitled to vote." This case challenges the Massachusetts statutes which, taken together, prohibit otherwise-qualified citizens from voting unless they register to vote at least twenty days before the election (" 20-day deadline" or " registration cutoff" ). G.L.c. 51, § § 1, 1F, 26, 34. The 20-day deadline appears nowhere in the Massachusetts Constitution.

More than two decades of significant technological change have passed since the Legislature adopted the 20-day deadline. See St. 1996, c. 454, § 7; St. 1993, c. 475, § 6. Now with " early voting," all registered voters may cast a ballot just 5 days after the registration cutoff. St 2014, c. 111. By election day, the Commonwealth's voter registration data base already includes the names of thousands of late-registered voters. As a practical and technological matter, those people could vote in the ordinary course. But the 20-day deadline compels officials to use a program that actually excludes their names from the final voter printout. These and other developments call into question any rationale for denying any qualified citizen the right to vote on account of the 20-day deadline.

After considering the facts and the law presented at trial, the Court concludes that the Legislature lacks constitutional authority to enact additional voter qualifications. The Legislature may pass laws that are necessary to ensure voters' qualifications of voters or to ensure election security and order. The evidence overwhelmingly shows no such necessity for the Massachusetts registration cutoff. Therefore, disenfranchising a qualified citizen because he or she did not register at least 20 days before the election exceeds the bounds of Legislature's authority and violates the Massachusetts Constitution. Enforcing the Constitution here is not a judicial " policy choice," as the Commonwealth contends.^[1] Rather, the Court simply applies the basic rule of our constitutional democracy that, in cases of conflict, a statute (the 20-day deadline), must yield to the higher commands of the Massachusetts Constitution.

BACKGROUND

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Along with the organizational plaintiffs, Chelsea Collaborative and MASSVote, Inc., three original individual plaintiffs, Edma Ortiz, Wilyeliz Nazario Leon and Rafael Sanchez (" plaintiffs" ) brought this action against the Secretary of the Commonwealth (" Secretary" ) and the Cities of Chelsea, Revere and Somerville (" Municipal Defendants" ) for declaratory relief on November 1, 2016. The complaint sought a preliminary injunction allowing the three individual plaintiffs to vote in the November 2016 election.

After hearing on November 7, 2016, the Court issued a preliminary injunction ordering the municipal defendants to accept provisional ballots from the individual plaintiffs. On November 17, 2016, the parties filed a Joint Motion to Modify the Court's November 7, 2016 Preliminary Injunction, which the Court allowed in an order requiring the local election official defendants to count the individual plaintiffs' provisional ballots. Later, by agreement, former plaintiff Wilyeliz Nazario Leon was dismissed voluntarily from this case. Shortly before trial, former plaintiff Edma Ortiz was dismissed from the case for lack of an actual controversy, because it turned out that, although the local election officials believed her ineligible, she was actually a specially qualified voter. Because her plane to Logan International Airport on October 19, 2016 was delayed for some hours in landing, she was absent from Massachusetts for more than 7 days prior to 8:00 p.m. on October 19. No one picked up on this arcane aspect of the law until after the election.

Although the 2016 election has passed, the parties and Court all agree an exception to the mootness doctrine applies, because the complaint raises issues that are capable of repetition but will evade review. See First Nat'l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 774-75, 98 S.Ct. 1407, 55 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978) (passage of the 1976 election did not preclude resolution of elections dispute thereafter). See generally Blake v. Massachusetts Parole Board, 369 Mass. 701, 708, 341 N.E.2d 902 (1976).

The Court recognized that the pendency of this case, and the precedent of preliminary injunctive relief in 2016, might cause complications in the 2018 elections cycle unless the Legislature or Supreme Judicial Court definitively resolves the issues soon. Therefore, the Court ordered expedited pretrial proceedings and an early trial date of July 5, 2017. See Mass.R.Civ.P. 57 (the " court may order a speedy hearing of an action for a declaratory judgment and may advance it on the calendar" ). The parties submitted trial briefs at the final pretrial conference on June 28, 2017. See Plaintiffs' Pre-trial Memorandum of Law and Proposed Conclusions of Law (" Pl. Mem." ); Secretary of the Commonwealth's Memorandum of Law (" Comm. Mem." ). During and after the trial, the parties submitted additional written legal arguments. Secretary of the Commonwealth's Supplemental Memorandum of Law, dated July 10, 2017 (" Comm. Supp. Mem." ); Letter dated July 10, 2017 from plaintiffs' counsel addressing the Kinneen case; and the Plaintiffs' Post-trial Letter dated July 17, 2017.

The Court conducted the trial without a jury on July 5, 6, 7 and 10, 2017. It received and accepted an amicus submission from the Massachusetts Town Clerks' Association on July 13, 2017 and supplemental filings, including motions to strike trial testimony, on July 17, 2017.

II. UNDISPUTED FACTS

The Court accepts and finds the following facts (and the facts concerning the parties set forth in Appendix C), which are established beyond any substantial dispute by the parties' pretrial filings, with minor modifications by the Court (reflected in language included in brackets below) resolving some minor disputes. For this purpose, the Court has treated as undisputed all proposed facts that a party disputed as to relevance only, after overruling the relevance objections. In any event, after hearing the evidence, the Court finds as fact all those proposed facts set forth below that were disputed only as to relevance.

The paragraph numbers in this section of the Court's memorandum are non-sequential, because this Memorandum retains the original numbering of the parties' submission and omits the proposed facts that are disputed.

A. Plaintiffs' Undisputed Facts

i. Voter Registration in Massachusetts

6. Eligible Massachusetts citizens may register to vote by (a) mailing or hand-delivering a voter registration affidavit to local election officials,^[2] (b) submitting a voter registration affidavit in person at a voter registration agency, (c) in person at the Registry of Motor Vehicles (" RMV" ), (d) online through the RMV, or (e) by submitting the voter registration affidavit online through the Secretary of the Commonwealth's website. 950 CMR 57.04-57.07.

7. Massachusetts does not permit its citizens to register (or re-register) to vote on Election Day and then cast a ballot based on that newly submitted registration information on the same day. 950 CMR 57.04-57.07.

9. Upon successfully registering, a citizen is added to the annual register of voters in his or her city or town. G.L.c. 51, § 46.

12. Local election officials are responsible for processing voter registration applications. 950 CMR 58.01.

13. Massachusetts uses a computer database to maintain and track voter registration information. This system is known as the Voter Registration Information System (" VRIS" ).

14. The office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth (" Secretary" ) maintains VRIS and provides technical support for its use.

16. VRIS serves several functions. [Among other things,] VRIS is used to input, store, and look up voter information; to send " queues" of electronic voter registration applications from the Secretary of the Commonwealth (" Secretary" ) to each city or town for processing; to print voter lists for early voting, primaries, and elections; to notate early voters and absentee voters ahead of an election day; to send certified election results to the Secretary; and to store information sourced from Annual Street Listings.

ii. Mail-In Registration or In-Person at the Local Election Office

17. The forms used for voter registrations mailed to a local election official and the forms used for in-person registrations at a local election official's office are substantively the same.

18. Upon receiving an in-person or mail-in registration form, a local election official typically time-stamps the form.

iii. In-Person Registration at a Voter Registration Agency or at the Registry of Motor Vehicles

20. Massachusetts citizens seeking to register to vote (" applicants" ) may complete voter registration affidavits at a voter registration agency, such as military recruitment offices or state agencies that provide public assistance or assistance to people with disabilities (e.g., Department of Transitional Assistance, Department of Mental Health, and Department of Developmental Services). 950 CMR 57.05(3)(a).

22. The effective date of an in-person registration at a voter registration agency is the day that an individual completes the signed affidavit of registration at the agency. 950 CMR 57.05(4)(f).

23. Applicants may also complete voter registration affidavits at the RMV. 950 CMR 57.06.

25. The...