The tricky calculus of designing a ballot with nine questions

July 10, 2026

By Chris Lisinski

Sometime in the coming weeks, Secretary of State William Galvin’s office will announce what number each of the big field of ballot questions will be assigned for the November ballot. That number will assume a prominent place in the campaigns, ads, and debates urging voters to support or oppose a measure.

So how is it determined which issue becomes Question 1, or Question 5, or Question 9?

It’s all in Galvin’s hands. And it turns out the answer draws more on the skills of a magazine or newspaper layout designer than those associated with someone charged with overseeing state elections and election law.

Galvin said the overarching goal he employs in determining the order of questions is having each one remain entirely on one side of the paper ballot and not spill over to the next side or to the next page of multipage ballots. That sometimes involves a bit of trial and error.

“When I’ve done it, that’s the main thing,” Galvin told CommonWealth Beacon. “We do a mock-up sometimes to see, especially where you have lengthy translations, ‘Where will the question appear? How many questions can we fit on this side of the ballot or on this card?’”

This time around, however, the job will not fall to the Brighton Democrat who has overseen every state election since 1995. Galvin is, in addition to his work as secretary, also the chief architect of a ballot question that would allow voters to register on Election Day, one of the nine set to go before voters.

To avoid the appearance of favoritism or any other conflict, Galvin will delegate the job of choosing which question receives which number to Michelle Tassinari, a top deputy who leads his office’s elections division. She’ll approach it with the same goal, according to Galvin: picking an order that’s easiest for a voter to comprehend, and avoiding any measure’s text from being split between multiple pages of the paper ballots now used statewide.

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