Court Throws Out State Voting Law

A United States District Court judge yesterday invalidated Massachusett's six-month residency requirement for voting.

The decision will not affect voting in the April 25th presidential primary, Attorney General Robert Quinn said yesterday. He explained that the ruling abolishes the residency requirement only for future state and local elections.

The only residency stipulation still presently in force in Massachusetts is the 30-day requirement established by Congress for presidential elections.

Judge Francis J. Ford, in a three paragraph opinion, ruled that in accordance with the opinion handed down last month by the U.S. Supreme Court invalidating Tennessee's one-year residency law, the Massachusetts requirement is illegal.

In a March decision, the Supreme Court held that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not permit a state to deny the right to vote to "new residents" while allowing "old residents" to vote.