With Finish Line In Sight, Massachusetts Voters Catch A Second Wind

Early voting in Massachusetts ended on Friday, and Election Day is nearly upon us. 

Matt Murphy of the State House News Service joins us to talk about how things look as the finish line nears -- and what local elections officals are presumably doing on Monday to prepare for voters Tuesday. 

Matt Murphy, State House News Service: They did have a few days, between the close of early voting -- which I think, unfortunately for people who were hoping for huge turnouts -- while we haven't seen the numbers yet, we did get that major storm here on the East Coast on the one weekend when early voting was supposed to transpire. So local officials Monday are getting their polling locations ready, and perhaps anticipating some pretty strong turnout -- if Massachusetts is going to look anything like what we're expecting to see across the country.

Carrie Healy, NEPR: Voters will be weighing in on three statewide ballot questions -- Question 1 about nurse staffing, Question 2 about Citizens United, and Question 3 about transgender rights. The group called Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which advocates for a "no" vote on 2, appeared in court last week. Could you unpack why the proposed TV ads they want to run on Fox News caused a stir?

They were in federal court where they have filed a lawsuit, and they were seeking an injunction, hoping to run ads in advance of the election without adhering to some of the relatively new laws in Massachusetts governing political advertising. Those basically say that if you're going to run an ad within 90 days of an election, or you're going to mention a specific candidate, you have to have the chief executive of that group appear and take responsibility, and you also have to display the top five donors to the organization that's responsible for the ad.

Mass. Fiscal, which describes itself as a nonpartisan educational group, they just put out information. Though that information tends to skew towards Republican candidates, and targets Democrats in their races, we have seen historically from that group. But technically, they are not advocating for any one candidate. And they think they should be able to air these ads without having to pay for ad time, that essentially the government has forced them to use.

So this is a lawsuit that they are hoping to win in the long term, which could upend a law that Massachusetts lawmakers passed, with Mass. Fiscal in mind, hoping to unearth some of the donors behind this group that has rather quickly become a pretty strong force in Massachusetts politics, at least at the local level.

Polls indicate there's very little chance of any change coming to the governor's office, and there aren't really that many contested legislative seats. Are you expecting any big changes at the Statehouse after the election?

I mean, there is certainly going to be change. There are a lot of new faces coming to Beacon Hill, no matter what, from retirements and other circumstances.

There are some races we're watching, particularly if the "blue wave" is massive. There potentially are some Republicans who could be at risk.

Some of the races to watch, while incumbents perhaps still enjoy the benefits of being an elected official, and being popular in their communities -- Democrats in a Senate race on the South Shore have raised a lot of money in their race against Senator Patrick O'Connor.

Senator Dean Tran has a challenge from a woman in North Central Massachusetts who he beat in a special election. She is running again in what was already a close race.

And there were other races in the western part of the state where Susannah Whipps left the Republican Party, became an Independent, has not yet run as an unaffiliated candidate, and is facing a Democratic challenger -- also a race we have our eye on.

Keep up here with Beacon Hill In 5.