Published on November 12, 2021
As Boston looks back on a historic election season, which saw Michelle Wu become the city’s first person of color and first female elected mayor in the city’s history, one figure stood out as the votes were counted last week – the number of Bostonians who didn’t vote. Only 30% of eligible voters showed up to the polls, down 8 points from 2013, the last time there was no incumbent running for mayor, even though opportunities for mail-in voting and drop box locations were dramatically expanded in intervening years. One solution to reversing anemic voter turnout numbers in Massachusetts and across the country is universal civic duty voting. To learn more about universal voting, we spoke with Ash Center senior practice fellow Miles Rapoport, who recently testified before the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Election Laws about how this tool could be used in the Bay State to spur more people to the polls.
