Yesterday the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, the private political dark money front run by Third CD Republican candidate Rick Green, referred what it calls its Voter Integrity Initiative to Secretary of State William Galvin. MassFiscal’s initiative has nothing to do with voter integrity. It is a blatant attempt to intimidate Latino, Asian, and African-American voters, a voter suppression tool worthy of Georgia.
The study Mass Fiscal sent over to the Secretary appears to have been devised by a middle schooler with advanced racial bias. Read it over if you want but the gist is MFA sent letters to individuals in eight municipalities who had voted in the September primary and then based upon the letters returned decided that some voters had voted illegally. And what towns did our middle school methodologist choose?
Well, out of 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts four of the eight selected by MFA are in the Third Congressional District where dark money king Rick Green just happens to be running for Congress. Not just any districts though, but towns with heavy minority populations. Here is a table of them broken down by Hispanic or Latino and Race, derived from 2010 United States Census figures using 2010 general population and housing statistics
| Municipality | CD | Population | White Alone% | Black % | Asian % | Hispanic % |
| Brockton | 8 | 93,810 | 42.90% | 29.80% | 2.30% | 10.00% |
| Framingham | 5 | 63,318 | 65.30% | 5.00% | 6.30% | 13.40% |
| Franklin | 9 | 31,635 | 91.40% | 1.30% | 3.80% | 2.00% |
| Haverhill | 3 | 60,879 | 79.50% | 2.50% | 1.60% | 14.50% |
| Lawrence | 3 | 76,377 | 20.50% | 2.30% | 2.30% | 73.80% |
| Lowell | 3 | 106,519 | 52.80% | 6.00% | 20.00% | 17.30% |
| Methuen | 3 | 47,255 | 74.90% | 2.00% | 3.70% | 18.10% |
| Milford | 4 | 27,999 | 82.50% | 1.90% | 2.40% | 8.30% |
Green and MassFiscal especially target Latinos – 74% of residents in Lawrence, 14.5% in Haverhill, 17% in Lowell, and 18% in Methuen. African American populations are smaller here but still substantial in Lawrence and Lowell, and Lowell has a 20% Asian population.
But you ask, MFA is a dark money political front, what are they doing in minority voter suppression? As Nancy MacLean shows in Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, the wealthy individuals behind dark money organizations hold it an important goal to prevent poor and minority voters from exercising their right to vote, precisely because those voters will cast ballots to improve their own lives in ways that lead to taxation of the rich.
It is obviously also important to Green to intimidate and disenfranchise as many minority and Democratic voters as he can.
Be sure to read the letter MFA sent Secretary Galvin for it singles out Lawrence – 74% Latino – in particular. Here is part of what MFA Interim Executive Director Carl Copeland had to say: “MassFiscal is prepared to work with the Secretary of State William Galvin’s office, and the city clerks from each town to ensure fraud is prevented in November’s election. MassFiscal flagged each voter with a questionable status with the original voter data obtained from the city clerks.”
Let me translate that for you: “Latino voters, we have your names.”
Here is what needs to happen now. Secretary of State Galvin needs to state publicly and unequivocally that Massachusetts will closely monitor MassFiscal and take every legal step to prevent Latino, Black, and Asian voters from being intimidated by MassFiscal.
Republican Secretary of State candidate Anthony Amore should then announce that he fully supports Secretary Galvin.
Then leaders across Massachusetts – Governor Baker, the House Speaker and Senate President, chairs and executive directors of the Massachusetts Republican and Democratic parties, and others should denounce MassFiscal.
Minority voter suppression is serious stuff. It went on for a hundred years after the Civil War, abated only after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The curtailing of the VRA by the Supreme Court has brought on renewed voter disenfranchisement attacks on minority rights again in the past few years, notably right now in Georgia where controversy is raging over the suppression of Black votes.
MassFiscal has brought this foul attack on democratic rights home to Massachusetts. This state needs to answer.
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money – and as of today, minority voter suppression.]