Massachusetts Voting Rights Restoration for Incarcerated Felons Initiative (2022)
| Massachusetts Voting Rights Restoration for Incarcerated Felons Initiative | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 8, 2022 | |
| Topic Suffrage | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type Constitutional amendment | Origin Citizens |
The Massachusetts Voting Rights Restoration for Incarcerated Felons Initiative (#19-03) did not appear on the ballot in Massachusetts as an indirect initiated constitutional amendment on November 8, 2022.
Overview
Measure design
The measure was designed to annul Article CXX of the Amendments to the state constitution, thereby restoring voting rights for incarcerated individuals convicted of a felony.[1][2]
Text of measure
Ballot summary
The final ballot summary for the measure would have been as follows:[3]
| “ | This proposed constitutional amendment would remove the existing prohibition against voting by persons incarcerated because of a felony conviction. Such persons would become able to vote in elections for governor, lieutenant governor, state senator, state representative, governor’s council, secretary of state, state treasurer, state auditor, state attorney general, and United States senator and representative in Congress.[4] | ” |
Constitutional changes
The measure would have annulled Article CXX of the Amendments to the state constitution. The following struck-through text would be have been deleted:[2]
Sponsor
Mass POWER sponsored the measure.[5]
Path to the ballot
In Massachusetts, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated constitutional amendment for the ballot equal 3 percent of votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election. No more than one-quarter of the verified signatures on any petition can come from a single county. Signatures must be submitted to the secretary of the commonwealth by the first Wednesday in December in the year that is at least two years before the year of the targeted election date. Massachusetts is unique among states with a process for initiated constitutional amendments because state law requires that any proposed initiative with enough valid signatures be approved by one-quarter of state legislators in a joint hearing—with senators and representatives voting together—in two successive sessions for the initiative to be certified for the ballot.
The requirements to get an initiated constitutional amendment certified for the 2022 ballot:
- Valid signatures required: 80,239 valid signatures
- Deadline (2022 petitions): The deadline to submit signatures for consideration by the legislature in 2020 and 2021 sessions was December 4, 2019.
- Deadline (2022 petitions): The deadline to submit signatures for consideration by the legislature in 2021 and 2022 sessions was December 2, 2020.
If enough signatures are submitted by the deadline, the initiative goes to the legislature, where it must garner the approval of 25 percent of all lawmakers, with senators and representatives voting jointly, in two successive sessions. If this requirement is met, the initiative goes on the ballot at the next general election. Because of this unique requirement, the earliest an initiated constitutional amendment can reach the ballot is two years following signature submission. And, depending on the year, it can be three years after signature submission before voters decide on the measure.
Details about this initiative
- The initiative was cleared to circulate on September 4, 2019.[1]
- The sponsors of the initiative submitted an insufficient number of signatures to the secretary of state on December 4, 2019.[6]
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Mass.gov, "Current petitions filed," accessed August 6, 2019
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Mass.gov, "Initiative 19-03 full text," accessed August 6, 2019
- ↑ Mass.gov, "Final summary for Initiative 19-01," accessed September 4, 2019
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "quotedisclaimer" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Facebook, "Mass POWER," accessed September 5, 2019
- ↑ Patch.com, "These Ballot Questions Just Took Big Leap Toward Making The Cut," December 4, 2019
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