Summer is in the home-stretch. Winter in these parts is cruel and none of us get enough sunlight. Every New Englander who has the luxury is thus basking in the last ten days of summer before its unofficial end the Tuesday after Labor Day. Sharks be damned! Beach, cookouts, festivals, porches, lakes, and libations – New England is getting after it.
And you know what getting after it never entails? Intensive research into political primaries.
There is a reason that Presidential general elections are understood to really start after Labor Day. It is only then that most American voters start paying attention.
So how has Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin responded to this reality? By scheduling Primary Election Day on the Tuesday immediately after Labor Day, September 4th. To be fair, as WBUR made clear in January, his hands were forced by some downright arcane Massachusetts election requirements:
Galvin was required by law to move the primary to an earlier date than it would otherwise be set — Tuesday, Sept. 18 — in order to avoid a conflict with Jewish religious holidays. State law requires Galvin to schedule the primary within seven days of the second Tuesday of September, which this year is Sept. 11, leaving the secretary a window from Sept. 4 until Sept. 18 to hold the election. The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur begins Sept. 18, and a week earlier — Sept. 11 — conflicts with another Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah.
So Massachusetts voters – who have some truly compelling primary races to ponder – are scheduled to vote on a day that does as much as possible to preclude that pondering. Really, would seeking reprieve in order to make Primary Election Day September 25th have bothered anyone who isn’t an incumbent?
The problem in American elections is that we make it really hard to vote. Holding the primaries September 4th but makes it worse. Voting is not a national holiday, in most localities one is not automatically registered, and registration rules, voting requirements, and voting processes differ across states and across counties within states. We have numerous elections and the dates, as witnessed by the MA primary, differ from year-to-year. All this combines so that bare majorities of *eligible* voters in the U.S. turn out in Presidential general elections (felony disenfranchisement knocked out 6.1 million otherwise eligible Americans in 2016). In mid-term general elections, but 35-40% of eligible voters cast a ballot.
AND THOSE ARE GENERAL ELECTIONS.
Primaries are far worse for turnout. 2018 is actually being heralded as on the upswing largely because of dissatisfaction with the Trump Presidency and more contested primaries reshaping party politics – especially on the Democratic side. Those soaring turnout numbers? 10.1% of eligible Democrats turned out for recent primaries in other states.
I’m no statistician. Scratch that. I am. 10.1% stinks. Significantly.
And Massachusetts is apt to be far worse than 10.1% because of the September 4th primary election date. Make no mistake, this is a 
political choice. Regardless of whether Galvin could have done more to alter the date (and there are mixed views on this from Galvin and his challenger for the Secretary of State position, sitting Boston City Councilor Josh Zakim), the fact is Massachusetts election law makes choices. Choices are not inevitabilities and Massachusetts’ choices place obstacles in the path to voting. Primaries are often too close to the Labor Day holiday – 2018 is but an extreme example. Add to this that we have one of the most restrictive deadlines for registration. Even that rare citizen sipping a Sam Summer mid-August, while investigating a primary contest, might not get to register in time to vote in the primary that has peaked her interest as MA typically requires registering 20 days in advance of an election to be eligible to cast a ballot.
Yes, there has been improvement. Early voting in the 2016 Presidential contest and recently passed automatic voter registration are truly laudable.
But the fact remains that on September 4th there are exciting, contested races like Galvin’s, in the MA 3rd and 7th, for the Republican challenger to Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic challenger to Charlie Baker, as well as numerous others. But most Commonwealth voters are not yet paying attention. Once they do, the results will be in.
Why? Because most potential voters are doing what I want to be doing tonight instead of writing this – having a tasty beverage, sitting outside, and enjoying the end of summer show with some friends. The Commonwealth can and should do better than scheduling a primary election that ignores this reality. It’s bad for democracy and bad for the quality candidates running in hard fought races.