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NAVIGATION PNHP RESOURCES
Posted on November 5, 2008

Single Payer Ballot Question Passes by Landslide in 10 Districts

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Dear Single Payer Supporters

In an election that has brought out the highest voter turnout in Massachusetts probably since 1928, local ballot initiatives supporting single payer and opposing individual mandates passed by landslide margins in all ten legislative districts where they appeared. With almost all precincts tallied, roughly 73 percent of 181,000 voters in the ten districts voted YES to the following:

“Should the representative from this district be instructed to support legislation creating a cost-effective single payer health insurance system that is available to all residents, and oppose laws penalizing those who fail to obtain health insurance?”

The measure passed with margins ranging from 65 percent in the Fifth Middlesex to 82 percent in the Third Hampshire. Below is a table of results, which you can also see - along with other local non-binding referendum outcomes - at the Boston Globe website:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/election_results/ma_localquestions/

District No Yes Yes % Total
First Hampshire District 4,085 16,395 80.05% 20,480
Third Hampshire District 2,571 11,437 81.65% 14,008
Second Franklin District 4,162 12,471 74.98% 16,633
Fifth Middlesex District 6,263 11,896 65.51% 18,159
Twelfth Middlesex District 4,384 11,556 72.50% 15,940
First Barnstable 4,575 9,366 67.18% 13,941
Fourth Barnstable 6,897 17,262 71.45% 24,159
Barnstable, Dukes & Nantucket 5,953 15,951 72.82% 21,904
Tenth Suffolk 5,221 10,757 67.32% 15,978
Fourth Plymouth 5,312 15,381 74.33% 20,693
Total 49,423 132,472 72.83% 181,895

We will soon have a page up on Mass-Care’s web-site with the final results, along with a history of single payer ballot questions in Massachusetts.

Thanks to everyone in these ten districts for your hard work, and congratulations!

Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care
33 Harrison Ave - 5th floor
Boston, MA 02111
Ph: 617-723-7001
Fx: 617-723-7002
Em: info@masscare.org