As voters this election cycle weigh ballot questions allowing people to register and vote on Election Day, and substituting an all-party primary in for the traditional party-based primaries, early in-person voting remains an enduring and often utilized election reform in Massachusetts.
Ella Adams | State House News Service
Posted inState Government
Voting season puts focus on election administration, litigation, turnout
“With 600,000 ballots on the street, I think it’s important for people to vote them and send them back,” Secretary of State William Galvin said, calling the figure average and declaring that his “strong suggestion” is that mail-in voters return their ballots “immediately.”
Posted inHealth Care
Signing new abortion law, Healey cites stories of ‘anguish and heartache’
Gov. Maura Healey on Monday signed legislation removing restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks of gestation, a change that supporters say will help more patients stay in-state to receive care.
Posted inPolitics
Healey and Minogue agree to fall debates, but not the same ones
In a June Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of 500 Massachusetts registered voters, Minogue and Shortsleeve received 31 percent and 29 percent of support, respectively, to Healey’s 56 percent.
Posted inBallot Questions
Healey throws support behind conservation ballot question
Asked if she has a position on any of the questions yet, Healey told GBH’s Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, “Not on all of them, and you know, there are some that I’ve sort of taken a closer look at as a matter of priority,” before mentioning the conservation measure.
Posted inHealth Care
House votes 119-33 to pass abortion law changes
The bill scraps the four types of exemptions currently outlined in statute for life-threatening situations for the mother or fetus, instead giving deference to doctors’ professional judgment.
Posted inTransportation
State offers no evidence of hunt for new transportation secretary
MBTA general manager Phil Eng stepped in as interim Department of Transportation secretary nine months ago. He has “no timeline” as to when his double duty will come to an end.
Posted inState Government
House counteroffer to primary care may focus on prescription drugs
Pressed about aspects of a potential health care bill, House Speaker Ron Mariano said, “I know the committee, health care policy, has done an awful lot of work in prescription drug stuff, so we’ll start probably with that, and see where that takes us.”
Posted inState Government
House approves later last call bill that would run through July
If it clears the Senate and is signed into law, the bill would take effect Monday, June 8 and expire Friday, July 31, and enable bars to push last call to 3 a.m. “subject to approval of the local licensing authority.”
Posted inTransportation
Lawmakers preserve 20-cent rideshare fee in surtax deal
The per-ride fee established in a 2016 law regulating transportation network companies is set to sunset in January 2027. The Senate quietly voted in April to extend the fee tacked onto all rideshares in its version of the surtax bill, and that language survived into the bill released Tuesday.
Posted inImmigration
Saying ‘people are afraid,’ Healey lays out ICE guidance
“People are afraid to worship. We have reports from our health care centers that people are afraid to go,” Healey said.
Posted inState Government
Minogue wins GOP endorsement in a romp; Shortsleeve ekes out ballot spot
The Massachusetts Republican Party convention set up a one-on-one showdown for the party’s gubernatorial nomination in the September primary between wealthy businessman Mike Minogue and former MBTA official Brian Shortsleeve.
Posted inState Government
Senate extends 20-cent fee on ride services
The Senate on Thursday passed a Transportation Committee Chair Sen. Brendan Crighton amendment — within a bundle of other amendments adopted on a single voice vote — to its surtax supplemental budget that would preserve the existing fee structure by eliminating the sunset clause in the 2016 law.
Posted inTransportation
T says weekend ridership nearly back to 2019 levels
Chief Operating Officer Ryan Coholan said weekend ridership is nearly back to 2019 levels.
Posted inGovernment
DTA: Some food aid recipients will see benefits drop to ‘zero’
“I’m trying to do the best I can to manage the situation,” Healey said. She added, “No state can come forward and replace what the federal government has taken away.”
Posted inPolitics
Winter special election scheduled to fill Lowell-based Senate seat
“The Senate on Monday adopted an order scheduling a March 3, 2026 special election to fill the First Middlesex seat, held since 2018 by the late Sen. Ed Kennedy, who died on Oct. 1 at the age of 74.”
