Voting rights advocates are looking fearfully at early efforts by Republicans in legislatures across the country to reverse many of the 2020 ballot access easements inspired by the pandemic. But an exception to the trend looks to be blooming in deep blue Massachusetts.
The state's top elections official, Secretary of State Bill Galvin, said Tuesday that he will push to make permanent last year's temporary expansions of voting by mail and early in-person voting, which caused turnout in November to smash state records.
The announcement is a signal development because Galvin has developed significant clout among his fellow Democrats in lopsided control of the legislature during his 25 years in office, longer than any other statewide official.
His proposal would repeal the state's strict excuse requirements for obtaining an absentee ballot — which, like those in 11 other states, were suspended last year in order to promote turnout and protect voters from exposure to the coronavirus. At least seven of the others, all with GOP-majority legislatures, look very likely to resume making voters justify the need to vote by mail.
The easement worked as dramatically in Massachusetts as any other state, boosting the share of votes delivered in an envelope more than tenfold, from 3 percent in 2016 to 42 percent in November.
"While voting by mail may not always be used to the same extent as the pandemic finally ends, my office has heard from many voters who have made it clear that they want this option to remain available for all future elections," Galvin said.
Another 23 percent of the presidential election vote was cast in person before Election Day after the state extended that option's availability to two full weeks, including weekends, from the previous 11 weekdays. Galvin's bill would continue that timetable indefinitely, as well, while creating a new seven-straight-day window before the primaries and permitting municipalities to begin offering early voting in local elections.
The Brennan Center for Justice now counts 165 pieces of legislation introduced in 33 states as of Monday that would restrict future voting access — mainly by limiting mail-in ballots, implementing new voter ID requirements or curtailing registration. At this point a year ago, the progressive think tank says, there had been only 35 bills to curb voting proposed in 15 state capitals.)
The biggest legislative bursts this year have been in three states that Biden carried last fall but with legislatures controlled by the GOP: Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Far more measures, 541 of them, have been filed in the past month to expand voting access, Brennan says. But — unlike in Massachusetts — the bulk have been written by Democrats in legislatures firmly in GOP control.
The two relaxations of the rules in the Bay State boosted turnout to a record 73 percent, well above the national share of those eligible who voted and a 400,000-person increase from 2016 even though almost no contests on any ballot in the state were competitive. (President Biden locked in the 11 electoral votes by a margin of 30 points, extending the Democtratic streak in the state to nine.)
Galvin's legislative proposal would also make Massachusetts the 22nd state where eligible people can register and vote on Election Day. The cutoff for getting on the rolls is now 20 days ahead of time, one of the earliest deadlines in the country.
Legislation to do what the secretary of state wants has already been filed by two influential Democratic legislators, Sen. Cynthia Creem and Rep. John Lawn. "In these days of voter suppression we need to make it easier for people," Creem said.
Republicans, who hold just one of every six seats on Beacon Hill, say they are mainly concerned about the costs of continuing last year's easements. A handful also contended that the switch to no-excuse mail voting for 2020 was not allowed under the state constitutional, although in December they dropped a lawsuit pressing that argument.
"We have such phenomenal access to voting in Massachusetts," GOP Rep. Nicholas Boldyga told the Boston Herald. "Making mail-in ballots permanent — I know I'm not there yet. I think we have a long way to go and I don't think it's necessary going forward unless there are extreme circumstances like a pandemic."
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.