We are in the middle of a pandemic. We are in the middle of people protesting for racial justice. We are in the middle of an election, all with many unanswered questions. Will President Trump be re-elected? Will former Vice President Joe Biden become our next president? Is Joe Biden too old to be president? Did President Trump downplay the pandemic? These are just some of the many unanswered questions we still have in this last week until the 2020 presidential election.

By far the biggest questions from this election is who will win, and will they win fairly?

With mail-in voting causing speculation, the results of this election may not be finalized until a week or so after the election itself.

President Trump has been criticized for not accepting the results of this election.

However, in the first Presidential debate, he stated, “If it’s a fair election, I have no problem with it.”

There is no proven evidence of mail-in ballot fraud, but there is speculation of this issue.

The position of the presidency is the biggest position American citizens are voting on this year. However, American citizens are also voting on the Senate. Currently, the Senate has a Republican majority. This Republican majority was what determined the President’s impeachment. The House of Representatives did in fact impeach the President, but the Senate did not. Additionally, Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court by the Senate. If you are a Democrat, you want the Senate to flip to be majority blue, while if you are a Republican, you want to keep the Senate red.

In Massachusetts, the current senators are Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. Warren won in 2018 and is currently in the second year of her second term. Markey is running for re-election this year against Republican Kevin O’Connor.

The last major item on the ballot is what we call the “Ballot Questions.” This year in Massachusetts, citizens are voting on two questions versus 2016’s four questions. Question #1 is about the “Right to Repair.” You may have seen an ad on TV either encouraging a yes vote on question 1 or a no vote on question 1, but those ads don’t give you the full reasoning behind why you should vote yes or why you should vote no.

According to ballotpedia.com, voting “yes” on question 1 “supports requiring manufacturers that sell vehicles with telematics systems in Massachusetts to equip them with a standardized open data platform beginning with model year 2022 that vehicle owners and independent repair facilities may access to retrieve mechanical data and run diagnostics through a mobile-based application.” This site additionally provides a description of a “no” vote, which means you oppose “requiring vehicles beginning with model year 2022 to be equipped with a standardized open data platform that vehicle owners and independent repair facilities may access to retrieve mechanical data and run diagnostics through a mobile-based application, thereby maintaining that vehicle owners and independent repair facilities may access mechanical and diagnostic data through a personal computer.”

Question #2 is about “Ranked-Choice Voting”. Unlike question #1, this question has both a Republican perspective and a Democratic perspective. Majority of Republicans do not support it, while majority of democrats do support it. According to ballotpedia.com, voting “yes” on question 2 “supports enacting ranked-choice voting (RCV) for primary and general elections for state executive officials, state legislators, federal congressional and senate seats, and certain county offices beginning in 2022.” Voting “no” on question 2 “opposes changing the existing plurality voting system to ranked-choice voting for primary and general elections for state executive officials, state legislators, federal congressional and senate seats, and county offices.”

There is no doubt the 2020 election is one of the most important elections in U.S. History.

Sources:
https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Question_1,_%22Right_to_Repair_Law%22_Vehicle_Data_Access_Requirement_Initiative_(2020)

https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Question_2,_Ranked-Choice_Voting_Initiative_(2020)#Support