Massachusetts residents will be automatically registered to vote when they make transactions at the state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles or with MassHealth, under a new law signed by Gov. Charlie Baker.
The transactions include a change of address, for example.
Both the RMV and MassHealth, the Medicaid program funded by both the state and federal government, are able to verify whether people registering to vote are citizens, according to the office of Bill Galvin, the state’s elections chief.
Applicants have to “specifically” decline to register as voters, otherwise their names and addresses are automatically added to the list of voters in the city or town that they live in, the office said.
“We will have systems in place to begin automatically registering voters at the Registry of Motor Vehicles and MassHealth on January 1, 2020, just in time for the next Presidential Primaries,” Galvin said in a statement.
Voters who register through the RMV and MassHealth will be able to join a party or decline to register through their local elections officials….