Ranked choice voting measure fails; Markey wins

Voters of Massachusetts said no Tuesday night to a reform that would have dramatically altered the way voters choose their elected leaders, rejecting a ballot question backed by a who’s who of current and former political leaders from both parties that would have allowed voters in future statewide elections to rank candidates in races with three or more choices on the ballot.

Voters approved the other ballot question, breaking in favor of giving independent mechanics access to wireless vehicle data to repair cars by a three-to-one margin, according to incomplete and unofficial returns.

Supporters of the auto repair question said their win at the ballot box would ensure that consumers can get their car or truck repaired wherever they want, but even after conceding defeat opponents of Question 1 said the Right to Repair Committee failed to show why the change was necessary.

Unofficial results showed voters favoring Question 1 by a three-to-one margin with over 65 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press.

With 80 percent of precincts reporting, the ranked choice voting question trailed with 45.5 percent supporting the initiative and 54.5 percent opposed, despite proponents raising nearly $10 million and vastly outspending their opponent who raised just over $3,500.

Sen. Ed Markey defeated his Republican challenger, Kevin O’Connor, a Dover attorney. Markey’s victory followed the Malden Democrat’s defeat of U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III in September, a primary battle that energized young Markey supporters and garnered national attention from progressive activists.

“I meant what I said on primary night -- the age of incrementalism is over,” Markey said in a livestreamed speech. “The time to be timid is over. Now is our moment to think big, build big, be big. As individuals, as political leaders, as a nation, we must turn what must be done into what gets done. In 2021, we will put justice on the floor of the United States Senate.”

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, first elected in 2018, thanked supporters for electing her to a second term and asked them to “just take good care of yourself” as election results rolled in and movement supporters prepared for challenges ahead. She ran against independent candidate Roy Owens and a write-in challenger, Randolph Republican Rayla Campbell.

Pressley recalled meeting a couple Tuesday morning at the Shelburne Community Center who had voted together over five decades and seen “heartbreak and progress,” an 18-year-old voter who told her he was “ready to make his voice heard,” and a woman in Roxbury in her early 70s who had lost a leg to diabetes.

“I told my daughter to bring me because I would not be able to sleep until I voted,” Pressley said the woman told her.

Describing unprecedented voter turnout in her 7th Congressional District and across the country, Pressley in a 9 p.m. webinar address said, “I thank you for your radical acts of love. Together we have fought for the humanity and dignity of our neighbors.”

Katie Lannan and Michael P. Norton contributed reporting.


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