Editorial: Register to Vote
Junior Jonathan Garrity pre-registers to vote. The registration drive took place after morning meeting on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy of Ms. Patricia Ridge)
On Tuesday, April 5th, 2022, Newman was paid a visit by Commissioner Ellen Rooney, a representative of the Boston Elections Commission, who hosted a brief registration drive in the front room to register students eighteen years of age to vote. Sixteen and seventeen year-old students had the option to pre-register, a right which was enacted into Massachusetts state law in August of 2016.
In joining the approximately 442,049 registered voters in the city of Boston, many Newman students took strides in carrying out their civic duty of giving their voices to major city, state, and national decisions. However, registration is only the first step. It’s actually showing up to the polls that matters. This is especially relevant on a local scale.
In 2021, Boston held its mayoral elections, in which only 127,703 registered voters actually cast their ballots. That’s just 28.9% of registered voters. The turnout was even lower in the September preliminary elections.
Beyond federal elections, ballots are also significant through the inclusion of ballot measure decisions. National attention was drawn to Massachusetts in the 2020, when a ballot measure was introduced which would have enacted a system of ranked-choice voting, in which voters rank candidates for a given office in order of preference. Despite being more innovative than a typical single-choice voting system, the measure was struck down.
However, the upcoming ballot measures for the 2022 state election offer another opportunity for Massachusetts constituents to offer their input on important issues. Thus far, one measure has been confirmed to be up for decision on the ballot: the “Income Tax for Education and Transportation Amendment”, which if enacted would create a 4% tax for funding education and transportation on households with incomes that exceed $1 million. A potential measure currently being deliberated by the state legislature is the “App-Based Drivers as Contractors and Labor Policies Initiative”, which would consider drivers working for rideshare apps like Uber or Lyft to be independent contractors and accordingly enact labor policies, such as a paid occupational safety training program.
Complaints about government decisions and elected officials ring hollow when people neglect the opportunity to vote. Voter apathy leads to an inadvertent maintenance of unsatisfactory qualities in the status quo. If we begin to look at these perceived negativities as areas for improvement, then real change can realistically be seen. All it takes is some research of local candidates and propositions, and actually getting out there to vote when the time comes.
The Massachusetts state primary, which will determine the candidates for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, and other state-level positions, takes place on September 6th, 2022. The voter registration deadline is on August 17.
