Single Payer Ballot Question Passes by Landslide in 10 Districts
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