State’s Highest Court to Consider Voter Registration Cutoff

BOSTON (AP) — The state’s highest court will hear arguments in a case involving Massachusetts’ 20-day voter registration cutoff deadline.

Voting rights advocates have challenged the cutoff saying it potentially disenfranchises thousands of voters.

A Suffolk Superior Court judge last year agreed and ruled the cutoff deadline unconstitutional.

Judge Douglas Wilkins pointed to the state’s adoption of early voting in 2016 that let voters begin casting ballots on Oct. 24, just five days after the Oct. 19 registration cutoff.

Democratic state Secretary William Galvin, who oversees the state’s elections and is running for re-election, appealed the ruling to the Supreme Judicial Court.

The court is scheduled to hear arguments on Tuesday.

If the justices side with the lower court, there would effectively be no voter cutoff rule.

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