Massachusetts Question 2, Fusion Voting Initiative (2006)
| Massachusetts Question 2 | |
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| Topic Election administration and governance and Primary election systems |
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| Status |
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| Type Indirect initiated state statute |
Origin |
Massachusetts Question 2 was on the ballot as an indirect initiated state statute in Massachusetts on November 7, 2006. It was defeated.
A “yes” vote supported allowing candidates for public office to be nominated by more than one political party or political designation (known as fusion voting), to appear on the ballot once for each nomination, and to have their votes counted separately by party or designation but totaled together to determine the winner. |
A “no” vote opposed allowing candidates for public office to be nominated by more than one political party or political designation (known as fusion voting), to appear on the ballot once for each nomination, and to have their votes counted separately by party or designation but totaled together to determine the winner. |
Election results
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Massachusetts Question 2 |
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| Result | Votes | Percentage | ||
| Yes | 688,259 | 34.58% | ||
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1,302,199 | 65.42% | ||
Text of measure
Ballot title
The ballot title for Question 2 was as follows:
| “ | Do you approve of a law summarized below, on which no vote was taken by the Senate or the House of Representatives before May 3, 2006? | ” |
Ballot summary
The ballot summary for this measure was:
| “ | This proposed law would allow candidates for public office to be nominated by more than one political party or political designation, to have their names appear on the ballot once for each nomination, and to have their votes counted separately for each nomination but then added together to determine the winner of the election. The proposed law would repeal an existing requirement that in order to appear on the state primary ballot as a candidate for a political party's nomination for certain offices, a person cannot have been enrolled in any other party during the preceding year. The requirement applies to candidates for nomination for statewide office, representative in Congress, governor's councillor, member of the state Legislature, district attorney, clerk of court, register of probate, register of deeds, county commissioner, sheriff, and county treasurer. The proposed law would also allow any person to appear on the primary ballot as a candidate for a party's nomination for those offices if the party's state committee gave its written consent. The proposed law would also repeal the existing requirement that in order to be nominated to appear as an unenrolled candidate on the state election ballot, or on any city or town ballot following a primary, a person cannot have been enrolled in any political party during the 90 days before the deadline for filing nomination papers. The proposed law would provide that if a candidate were nominated by more than one party or political designation, instead of the candidate's name being printed on the ballot once, with the candidate allowed to choose the order in which the party or political designation names appear after the candidate's name, the candidate's name would appear multiple times, once for each nomination received. The candidate would decide the order in which the party or political designation nominations would appear, except that all parties would be listed before all political designations. The ballot would allow voters who vote for a candidate nominated by multiple parties or political designations to vote for that candidate under the party or political designation line of their choice. If a voter voted for the same candidate for the same office on multiple party or political designation lines, the ballot would remain valid but would be counted as a single vote for the candidate on a line without a party or political designation. If voting technology allowed, voting machines would be required to prevent a voter from voting more than the number of times permitted for any one office. The proposed law would provide that if a candidate received votes under more than one party or political designation, the votes would be combined for purposes of determining whether the candidate had won the election. The total number of votes each candidate received under each party or political designation would be recorded. Election officials would announce and record both the aggregate totals and the total by party or political designation. The proposed law would allow a political party to obtain official recognition if its candidate had obtained at least 3% of the vote for any statewide office at either of the two most recent state elections, instead of at only the most recent state election as under current law. The proposed law would allow a person nominated as a candidate for any state, city or town office to withdraw his name from nomination within six days after any party's primary election for that office, whether or not the person sought nomination or was nominated in that primary. Any candidate who withdrew from an election could not be listed on the ballot for that election, regardless of whether the candidate received multiple nominations. The proposed law states that if any of its parts were declared invalid, the other parts would stay in effect. | ” |
Full Text
The full text of this measure is available here.
Path to the ballot
An indirect initiated state statute is a citizen-initiated ballot measure that amends state statute. There are nine (9) states that allow citizens to initiate indirect state statutes.
While a direct initiative is placed on the ballot once supporters file the required number of valid signatures, an indirect initiative is first presented to the state legislature. Legislators have a certain number of days, depending on the state, to adopt the initiative into law. Should legislators take no action or reject the initiative, the initiative is put on the ballot for voters to decide.
In Massachusetts, the number of signatures required for an indirect initiated state statute is equal to 3% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. Massachusetts also has a distribution requirement that requires no more than 25% of the certified signatures on any petition can come from a single county.
The state Legislature has until the first Wednesday of May in the election year to pass the statute. If the legislature does not pass the proposed statute, proponents must collect a second round of signatures equal to 0.5% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. The Legislature also has the power to place an alternative measure alongside the proposed statute via a simple majority vote of the state legislature.
A simple majority vote is required for voter approval. However, the number of affirmative votes cast for the measure must be greater than 30% of the votes cast in the election.
See also
External links
Footnotes
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