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H832 • 2025

An Act relative to uniformity of ballots in polling places

An Act relative to uniformity of ballots in polling places

Elections
Active

The official status still shows this bill as active or still awaiting another formal step.

Sponsor
Sean Garballey
Last action
2025-10-08
Official status
Referred to House Committee on Bills in the Third Reading
Effective date
Not listed

Plain English Breakdown

Using official source text because the generated explanation was unavailable or could not be confirmed against the official bill text.

An Act relative to uniformity of ballots in polling places

An Act relative to uniformity of ballots in polling places By Representative Garballey of Arlington, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No.

What This Bill Does

  • An Act relative to uniformity of ballots in polling places By Representative Garballey of Arlington, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No.
  • 832) of Sean Garballey relative to uniformity of ballots in polling places.
  • Election Laws.
  • Status: Referred to House Committee on Bills in the Third Reading

Limits and Unknowns

  • This entry is temporarily using official source text because the generated explanation could not be confirmed against the official bill text during the last sync.

Bill History

  1. 2025-10-08 House

    Rules suspended

  2. 2025-10-08 House

    Read second and ordered to a third reading

  3. 2025-10-06 House

    Committee reported that the matter be placed in the Orders of the Day for the next sitting for a second reading

  4. 2025-09-02 House

    Bill reported favorably by committee and referred to the committee on House Steering, Policy and Scheduling

  5. 2025-06-10 Joint

    Hearing scheduled for 06/17/2025 from 01:00 PM-05:00 PM in B-1

  6. 2025-02-27 House

    Referred to the committee on Election Laws

  7. 2025-02-27 Senate

    Senate concurred

Official Summary Text

An Act relative to uniformity of ballots in polling places
By Representative Garballey of Arlington, a petition (accompanied by bill, House, No. 832) of Sean Garballey relative to uniformity of ballots in polling places. Election Laws.
Status:
Referred to House Committee on Bills in the Third Reading

Current Bill Text

Read the full stored bill text 
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Bill H.832

Section 44 of chapter 54 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2022 Official Edition, is hereby amended by adding the following paragraph:-

Ballots for an election shall be uniform in size, material and content for all voters, regardless of whether the ballot is voted on a ballot-marking device or directly on a paper ballot; provided, however, the state secretary may provide ballots that are not uniform when necessary to: (i) comply with federal law; (ii) accommodate voting or tabulating; or (iii) accommodate hand count tabulation methods. Ballots shall be tabulated directly from the voter-marked selections and not from a barcode, QR code or other representation not marked by the voter, either on a ballot-marking device or directly on paper.

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