About Fair Elections

Mass Voters is about investing in democracy. We want to encourage more people to run for the Legislature in Massachusetts.

Why? It's certainly not that our current legislators are doing a bad job. We honor and value their public service.

But democracy is about competition and freedom of choice. With just one candidate there is no competition and no real choice. And all too often in Massachusetts there is only one candidate.

There are great potential candidates in your community. But they don't step up to the plate because they don't think they can raise enough money.

We want the ability to raise money to be a little less important in our democracy. We want to balance private campaign financing with public campaign financing.

So we are proposing a new law that would provide matching funds in House and Senate races. Massachusetts already has limited public campaign financing for statewide offices. But the law does not cover legislative campaigns. It is time to close the loophole.

Here's our proposal: Legislative candidates who agree to reasonable contribution and spending limits (and who gather a threshold number of small-dollar contributions) would be able to earn three dollars of public money for every dollar they raise privately, with a sensible cap on the amount of public funding available per candidate.

If you think that's a good idea, join Mass Voters today. Join online or print a membership form here.