Senator Barry Finegold was elected in 2018 to represent the Second Essex and Middlesex District which includes Andover, Dracut, Lawrence and Tewksbury, a seat he previously held from 2010 to 2015. He currently serves as the Chair of the Joint Committee on Election Laws and Chair of the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet, and Cybersecurity.
Barry was the chief architect of the biggest updates to Massachusetts’ election laws in decades.
In 2014, Senator Finegold advanced a reform bill that brought early voting to Massachusetts, as well as online voter registration, post election audits, and preregistration of 16- and 17-year-olds.
In response to COVID-19, as Senate Chair of Election Laws, Senator Finegold garnered bipartisan support for a bill that, for the first time in the history of the Commonwealth, created a secure vote-by-mail system and allowed voters to vote early in both the state primary and general elections in 2020. This legislation contributed significantly to the record breaking turnout in Massachusetts for the 2020 general election, which saw a majority of voters casting their ballots by mail or during the early voting windows.
In October of 2021, the Senate passed a major election reform bill known as the VOTES Act. Senator Finegold led the work on this landmark election reform bill, which would make vote-by-mail, early voting, and same-day registration permanent in Massachusetts.
As a leading voice on electoral reform in Massachusetts, Senator Finegold hopes to continue modernizing our election system going forward.