---
type: "Bill"
title: "An Act relative to the 2026 state primary election date"
description: "An Act relative to the 2026 state primary election date"
jurisdiction: "us/states/ma"
legislature: "Massachusetts General Court"
session: "194th"
identifier: "H 4531"
citation: "Massachusetts H 4531 (194th)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: []
version_count: 1
action_count: 15
vote_count: 0
first_action: "2025-09-17"
last_action: "2025-09-23"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/d77c9303-29ab-4611-ae17-a22ed667559d"
source_url: "https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H4531"
source_hash: "d0b5453786b7cfab2b9b80a3198dfe52b821f282e22949ba7ea2b3ee778f81b6"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ma"]
---

# Massachusetts H 4531 (194th) — An Act relative to the 2026 state primary election date

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H4531.pdf)

## Sponsors

- House Committee on Ways and Means — primary (organization)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2025-09-17** Reported by the committee on House Ways and Means
- **2025-09-17** Reported on a part of H4429
- **2025-09-17** Committee recommended ought to pass and referred to the committee on House Steering, Policy and Scheduling `committee-passage-favorable, referral-committee`
- **2025-09-17** Committee reported that the matter be placed in the Orders of the Day for the next sitting
- **2025-09-17** Rules suspended
- **2025-09-17** Read second, ordered to a third reading, rules suspended, read third and passed to be engrossed `passage, reading-2, reading-3`
- **2025-09-18** Read, rules suspended, read second `reading-1, reading-2`
- **2025-09-18** Amendment (Rausch) rejected `amendment-failure`
- **2025-09-18** Ordered to a third reading
- **2025-09-18** Read third (title change) and passed to be engrossed `passage, reading-3`
- **2025-09-18** Emergency preamble adopted
- **2025-09-18** Emergency preamble adopted
- **2025-09-18** Enacted `passage`
- **2025-09-18** Enacted and laid before the Governor `passage`
- **2025-09-23** Signed by the Governor, Chapter 34 of the Acts of 2025 `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/d77c9303-29ab-4611-ae17-a22ed667559d`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Massachusetts legislature records).