Auto Repair, Ranked-Choice Voting Questions Cleared for November Ballot

Proposals to address ranked-choice voting and increase access to automobile data are now on course to be decided at the ballot box after opponents of the latter question dropped their challenge.

Secretary of State William Galvin announced Monday that he certified the ballot questions, so each cleared the final hurdle and will appear before voters on Nov. 3.

An automobile manufacturer-backed group that is fighting the vehicle data question filed a challenge with the State Ballot Law Commission last week, arguing that it should be ineligible to make the ballot because the electronic signature-gathering company the campaign hired did not comply with technical requirements laid out by the state's highest court.

However, the group withdrew their challenge on Monday after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of Republican congressional candidate Helen Brady, who had initially been deemed ineligible for the same signature-gathering reason.

A spokesman for the organization said it will continue to fight the ballot question, forecasting almost four months of vocal campaigning for and against the proposal to update the state's 2012 right-to-repair law.

If the ranked-choice voting question is approved, Massachusetts would become only the second state after Maine to use the system for many state and federal races, starting in 2022.