Professors Jesse Rhodes and Tatishe Nteta participated in a briefing of Massachusetts state legislators, staff, and the media around the VOTES Act, a legislative proposal which would expand voter access by making early voting and vote by mail permanent, establishing same day registration, and increasing voting opportunities for eligible incarcerated persons. Professors Rhodes and Nteta briefed participants on research on the positive effects of same day registration on voter turnout, and shared data from the UMass Poll showing that Massachusetts residents support same day registration. Video from the briefing is available here.

The team of political scientists who direct the University of Massachusetts Amherst / WCVB Poll have released a series of findings from a new statewide poll that surveyed respondents about a number of topics, including their views of Gov. Charlie Baker’s job performance, candidate preference in the 2022 gubernatorial race and a number of issues impacting the commonwealth, such as the COVID pandemic and K-12 education. With Baker choosing not to seek re-election to a third term earlier this week, the poll and the expertise of UMass pollsters have earned an especially high profile. The poll’s results on the question of requiring voter identification are also covered following the failure of a Republican-led effort to drive a new law requiring IDs to gather enough signatures to appear on next year’s ballot. (The Lowell Sun, Cape Cod Times, Yahoo!News, New Bedford Standard-Times, Gloucester Daily Times, 12/3/21; various News Office releases)

The American Political Science Review recently published a major engagement with Timothy Pachirat’s "Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight." Authored by Jasmine English and Bernardo Zacka at MIT, the research article revisits Pachirat’s acclaimed 2011 ethnography and exploration of what makes the massive, repetitive violence of industrialized animal slaughter possible. By drawing on Every Twelve Seconds to advance new arguments about the relationships between violence, visibility, and social change, the article demonstrates the enduring power of Pachirat’s work to inspire continued thinking on these important questions. (Cambridge University Press, 11/08/2021)

Two-thirds of Massachusetts parents support COVID vaccination mandates for public sector workers and public schoolchildren, according to a new statewide University of Massachusetts Amherst / WCVB Poll. The 66% of parents who support the mandate for public sector workers and 64% who support the mandates for children attending public schools significantly outpaces non-parents, of whom 50% support the worker mandate and 43% support the child mandate. (UMass News, 11/22/2021)