On June 29, 2017, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which had been created by President Donald Trump on May 11, requested information on registered voters from all 50 states dating back to 2006. The states were given until July 14 to respond. On June 30, Secretary Galvin announced that the state would refuse to provide the requested information to the commission.

Galvin was elected to Secretary of the Commonwealth in 1994. He has won re-election six times since—in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018.

Galvin has been an active participant in the National Association of Secretaries of State, serving first as chairman of the Standing Committee on Securities, then as co-Chairman of the Committee on Presidential Primaries.

Noteworthy events

Senate seat certification

Following the death of long-time Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, brother of President John F. Kennedy, in August 2009, a special election was to be held on January 19, 2010, to determine who would fill the seat. It was temporarily held by governor-appointee Paul G. Kirk, who had agreed not to run in the contest. In the midst of the special election campaign, health care reform came to the forefront of the national debate. The United States Senate version of the health care measure barely passed on Christmas Eve 2009 with a 60-vote majority, strictly on party lines. The loss of just one vote would seriously jeopardize efforts to pass the joint House and Senate version of the bill. This put the Massachusetts special election in the national spotlight. The Democratic primary winner, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who had flipped-flopped on the issue of health care during the course of the campaign, said that she would likely support the passage of health care reform. Scott Brown, the Republican candidate, on the other hand had said that he planned on being the 41st vote to kill the measure.

With this in mind, the Democratic leadership, both nationally and within the state of Massachusetts itself, were prepared to delay the certification of the winner of the special election in order to pass health care reform in the Senate should Brown be elected. While a spokesman for Galvin's office suggested that the "certification of the Jan. 19 election by the Governor's Council would take a while," another source indicated that Galvin would not certify the winner of the election, should it turn out to be Scott Brown, "until Feb. 20 - well after the president’s [State of the Union] address."

Massachusetts state law dictates that an appointed senator, in this case Paul Kirk, must remain in office until election and qualification of the person duly elected to fill the vacancy. Republican Party attorneys argued, however, that "an appointed senator’s right to vote is not dependent on whether his successor has been certified." In other words, following the special election, Kirk might have lost the right to cast a vote on behalf of the state of Massachusetts in the United States Senate, even if a recount, which can only occur "if the margin of victory is less than half a percent of the total vote," was enacted.

On the eve of Scott Brown's historic election victory, Democratic Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who, in 2006, unseated Republican incumbent George Allen, released a statement in which he said "it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."

Nearly two and a half weeks after his historic victory in Massachusetts, attorneys for Senator-elect Scott Brown demanded the certification of the special election results and the swearing in of their client prior to the Congressional recess beginning on Friday, February 5, 2010, six days earlier than originally scheduled. Presided over by Vice President Joe Biden, Scott Brown was sworn in as a United States Senator at 5pm on February 4, 2010.

UOCAVA violation

The Department of Justice found Galvin to have acted in violation of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 2002 for not reporting and collecting the number of sent and returned absentee ballots from overseas military personnel registered to vote in the state of Massachusetts. Following an investigation by the United States Department of Justice in 2008, a settlement was reached.-->

June 2017 request for voter rolls

On June 29, 2017, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which had been created by President Donald Trump on May 11, requested information on registered voters from all 50 states dating back to 2006. The states were given until July 14 to respond. On June 30, Secretary Galvin announced that the state would refuse to provide the requested information to the commission.