Massachusetts
Should Massachusetts switch to statewide ranked choice voting? – The Boston Globe
In 2018, when I entered a multiperson primary, several people asked: “Why are you running when there’s already a woman in the race?” That question has been posed countless times to nontraditional candidates for office. It is also a prime example of identity-based vote-splitting concerns; avoiding this is one of many reasons why Massachusetts should adopt statewide ranked choice voting, or RCV.
RCV empowers voters, enhances candidate ballot access, and improves democracy by allowing voters to rank their favored candidates in a particular race. The first candidate to break 50 percent plus one vote wins. If no candidate earns that majority in the first round of counting, the last-place candidate is eliminated and their votes redistributed to voters’ second choices. This digital process repeats until a candidate breaks the simple majority threshold.
RCV’s redistribution process alleviates vote-splitting concerns based on candidates’ identities, political ideologies, or other reasons because it avoids voting power dilution. Currently, nontraditional candidates are dissuaded from running against each other out of fear that each will reduce anyone’s chances of winning. RCV, however, encourages diverse candidates to run and generates more reflective representation in elected office. Thus, RCV also empowers voters to vote for their favored candidate(s) because so-called throw-away votes no longer exist.
Additionally, RCV makes campaigning more respectful and less rancorous. In New York City’s first RCV municipal election, “ranked choice [had] an unusual effect on some New Yorkers: They were civil,” the New York Times reported.
RCV is simple for voters to use. Voters in more than half the states in the nation already use it in races ranging from local government to presidential elections, including several Massachusetts communities.
Finally, RCV ensures that candidates win elections by a true majority. Under our existing system, a stark number of candidates win multiperson primaries with less than half the vote.
RCV yields many benefits, including ensuring election by majority vote, reducing systemic barriers to entry, avoiding vote-splitting concerns, generating more diversity both on the ballot and in elected office, and more positive campaigning. We already have the technological capabilities to make the switch. Massachusetts should adopt statewide RCV.
NO
Paul Diego Craney
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance
While proponents of Ranked Choice Voting claim it will “improve” our elections and deliver more “fair” results, the reality of the system in practice could not be further from the truth.
In California, where RCV already existed, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed an RCV proposal, noting it “has often led to voter confusion and the promise that ranked choice voting leads to greater democracy is not necessarily fulfilled.”
RCV proponents claim it selects a candidate with the most support from the voters. In actuality, it only determines a winner by eliminating votes from those who do not select the two candidates last standing.
Unless a voter can correctly guess which two candidates will survive the last round of RCV, that voter’s vote is discarded. If this sounds confusing, it’s because it is.
RCV proponents also falsely claim it results in less negative campaigning, but negative campaigning has remained prominent in all places where the RCV is in use, merely shifting to Super PACs and outside organizations. Candidates should freely debate the issues and be unafraid of contrasting with other candidates. With RCV, negative campaigning will continue in a more convoluted way, candidates will feel even less encouraged to provide a contrast, and voters will get even less information than they do now.
RCV ballots force voters to guess the candidates who will remain standing in multiple voting rounds and cast their votes in the dark. If they guess wrong and vote for eliminated candidates, their ballots are discarded and not counted in the final vote. Winners get a false majority of remaining ballots, not a true majority of all the voters voting in the election.
In 2020, Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly opposed a ballot question to allow for RCV. Despite support from the state’s top Democrats, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, voters in nearly 80 percent of the state’s cities and towns rejected the ballot question. The proponents spent nearly $10 million while the opponents spent less than $10,000.
If RCV proponents can’t get voters behind their idea with a 1,000 to 1 spending disparity, perhaps it’s time for them to consider the problem may lay with the idea itself.
Linda Greenstein can be reached at greensteinlm@gmail.com.
Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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