When this was reported at 11pm, 33% of votes had not yet been tallied. That is a significant enough amount that the 51%/49% could change. In fact, earlier in the evening (around 9), question 2 was actually passing with early results showing a much different ratio of yes/no.

Right to repair was not needed. Repair shops subscribe to a service and get all the codes. This was simply an attempt (and a successful one at that) to get intellectual property from the auto manufacturers. I wonder if any car makers will stop selling cars in Massachusetts. Obviously, the big ones like Ford and VW will continue to, but I could see someone like Fiat only selling in bordering states.

sorry, but my finacee purchased a used VW a few months ago, and it only came with the valet key (no keyless entry). The VW dealer wants to charge her $300 for a key with keyless. The physical key can be had on ebay for $30, and there is less than 10 minutes of labor involved. Consumers are being GOUGED for the "intellectual property".

Kudos to the voters of MA for getting Question 1 right!

I see there was no binding resolution on reading comprehension, or math word problems.

$300

$30 for the key
10 min of labor at $70/hr= $11.66
the coding= $258.34

and you can only get it from one place(VW dealers).

How is that not a rip-off/mini-monopoly?

@Chris L - I've priced this all out as I wanted to make a back up of my key.

The key cutout alone is $30. The FOB that the cutout goes into is $70.

Since you don't have the original FOB they actually have to reprogram the car in order to program the key.

Kind of a pain in the backside. You can program new FOBs in order to make a backup on your own if you have two other FOBs.

I agree that it should be cheaper, but there is more to it than you let on.

I'm aware that they need to place a key in the ignition, while plugging into the OBD port of your vehicle to reprogram both. That's the ~10 min of labor i spoke of. The real "cost" in this is the actual intellectual property of the code.

At least we both agree that its too high.

It hasn't been officially called yet, but the initiative backers have conceded.
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/politics/massachusetts/12008998795975/backers-of-mass-doctor-assisted-suicide-concede/

Damn, grandma won this round.

Statehouse News Service has called the question, saying the Death with Dignity Coalition has conceded. 51% no to 49% yes

This is too bad. Government doesn't get any bigger than when it's telling you how you can die.

The tax and spenders won

You're not making much sense there.

There's no family notifiation requirement in MA for *any* medical treatment or procedure for any consenting adult. There should never be for this, either.

Perhaps you could run this as a test case and see what happens?

Why would you not tell them?

How can we have a serious discussion with people like you. The "assisted suicide" question was for terminally ill patients, most likely helpless, in pain, and bed-ridden. What do you tell the doc? I have a huge headache, could you please bring me 100 tylonol? If this happen to me, will you come to visit me at the hospice, with some chocolates, and tell me some funny jokes to make me feel better?

What a joke know-it-all people like you are.

Why don't we just have the doctors carry guns and when someone decides they want to go just have the doctor put a bullet through their head. If you really want to kill yourself it is very simple to do so. To force doctors to go against their morals and the hippocratic oath seems wrong to me.

Why don't you explain the issue to your kids? Why is society responsible for how you relate things to them?

You want me to explain this one to your kids? I would be happy to take that parenting responsibility on for you, but it probably makes more sense to raise your kids to have empathy and faith that people can make very personal decisions for themselves without outside interference.

You're online now, correct?

Look it up yourself!!

"Most life insurance policies contain something called a contestability clause. It generally states that within a two-year period of purchase, the insurance company will not pay out if the policyholder commits suicide. However, after that two-year period is up, the policy will pay out, regardless of when the person dies. This grace period exists in every state"

http://www.insure.com/articles/lifeinsurance/assisted-suicide.html

Saul - The point is that you should be able to make that decision on your own. Do you need government to make that decision for you? I do not.

Ironic...the Democrats' rallying cry for women was to allow them the choice of what to do with their bodies, yet this ultimate form of control over self was defeated.

Yeah, only "Democrats" voted this down, great analysis. The deciding factor in this one was level of formal education - check the results by town, most cities heavily populated by voters without degrees (Fall River, Lowell, New Bedford, etc.) went 65-35 against the initiative, and the opposite was true in places with the highest percentage of degrees. Make what you want of it, but this measure was defeated by churches having more influence over their flocks than logic.

Because some people place the comfort and final wishes of their dying parents/spouse ahead of money?

Hey, at least for those last six months you'll have the Right To Repair, whatever the hell that means.

I never said you have to spend your time suffering, If life really sucks and you don't want to live it is extremly easy to kill yourself. Telling doctors they have to help is against their code of ethics. Also seeing as there is no tracking what is stopping these pills from ending up on the streets like every other pill out there. Doctors make mistakes all the time and miracles happen everyday.

As far as I knew, it made it an option for doctors who practice, it didn't mandate that they do it.

for me it was the process through which the law was written and seemed too many loopholes not only to kill somebody who may not be terminally ill (either suicide for a healthy individual or also the fact that it could be easily tricked into having somebody killed who didn't want to for the will money for example)

I've known a few terminally ill people, one of whom experienced the wrath of stage 4 cancer, and they all wanted to live as long as possible. The cancer patient was told she had 6 months to live. She lived another three years. I am so happy to have been in her life for those three additional years.

If you WANT to live as long as possible, no one's going to stop you. Good lord, the glurge.

Robert, your memory is fine, this is another great example of how to defeat a ballot measure through fear and obfuscation. Remember a few years back when the measure to allow convenience stores to sell booze flipped from Yes to No in the final week because the Mass Patrolmens Association put out all those ads saying that it would lead to blood in the streets from drunk driving deaths? Same thing, except here the blood is in your momma's bedroom.

You are right. Also, at least to me, it seemed like more information came out yesterday, than at any time leading up to it. I could be wrong on that, If you had your mind already made up and didn't see or read or hear the info, you were not voting fully informed. I looked at it from what I have dealt with over the years and trying to see it through they eyes of someone with no hope left.

Maybe they should work at Catholic hospitals, which should of course decline from accepting any government funding. Everyone wins!

When you take a job, you're obliged to fulfill the requirements of that job. If you don't wish to do that, find other employment.

And I watched my younger sister die of breast cancer. She wanted to die peacefully, but people like, who interfere with her freedom, made her unnecessarily suffer. Is this how you get your kicks?

Not having this law did not stop your sister from killing herself.

Seriously David??? Apparently all the lies and scare tatics worked on you. "Burned-out caregivers" could push disabled people down a flight of stairs or off a bridge. "Burned-out caregivers" could shoot or strangle a disabled person too. We are not talking about DISABLED people. We are talking about TERMINALLY ILL peple! Please get your facts straight as you are sending out misinformation and are considered part of the problem!!

and burned out care givers cannot force the terminally ill person to go to the dr themselves, get the script themselves, go to the pharmacy and get it filled themselves and then prepare and take the medication. Caregivers may be amazing people but they cannot fulfill all of these requirements of the law as stated.

I shouldn't have to tell you that disabilities =/= terminally ill.

Also, your disclaimer that you are not speaking for the Commission, is pretty weak.

Jennifer, Thank you for writing this. Adding your personal experience here might help others understand. Peace above.

John, I saw our mayor late last night, and she was obviously happy about the CPA passing. Her exact request, when I expressed my tepid feeling toward it, was to judge it by the projects that the funds are used for in the future. It would seem, on this, that you two agree.

No one will complain...because, if you fear inferior products/service, you still have the CHOICE to take your car to the dealership. That is what this bill was all about; choice. No one should be forced to take there car to a specific location to be fixed!

As you write this on your laptop made in China.

IMO you do not have the legal right to vote or force a dealer to allow a repair shop down the street for your personal choice to infringe on ones intellectual property. The auto maker owns those copyrights to use & not sell or allow others to use as they so choose. If I were the dealer I'd set the price for the programs & scanners so high the small shop couldn't compete against the dealer. Then sue the State of MA for lost revenue. What will the state of MA do next?? Vote to establish the price of the program & scanners hahahahahahahahah

Tom, then the auto manufacturer should be required to note in plain view that if you purchase their vehicle, you can only have it serviced at a dealer. That your cost for repair will be $X more than it could have been otherwise.

One area I think also should have been addressed in this bill is the bogus billing dealers and many repair shops now use. The manufacturer says a brake job is 3 hours labor so if it takes 90 minutes, they charge for 3 hours because that is what it is allowed.

Agreed Bob. The consumer should educate his/her self prior to any purchase. Most consumer complaints arise from buyers who assume :-o
Copyrights/Trademarks/Patents are designed to protect the owner from his/her invention/design from anybody else owning or using them without permission from the owner. This question gave Dealers the legal right to step on the little guy and charge 100 times for the program/scanner than what they are worth. Do you really think the little guy will be able to perform work on your car cheaper after getting fleeced by the dealer. The dealer's laughing all the way to the bank with no work to perform and tons of profit. The consumer loses on this one.

My heart I just know will end up being done by a real true thing (I did summary report on it) Broken Heart Syndrome (not always to do from a person) author of article I read ron winslow (google it). In the meantime I will have to just pretend to have a life and inside still keep on being in pain as I do suffer from a real illness: severe depression. I just don't get why I have to go try to have all the other parts to my life to have the most important part missing and not get a choice of who I want to share all the so called wonderfulness with. Again not where this question was aimed at but I struggle to wake up each morning, take months to clean apt when is messing ( took a glass of alcohol to be energized , but don't like drinking cause it makes me worse on the inside), I have to push myself to work the few hours I do and not enough in a month to pay half my bills. The job itself is more exhausting than one realizes. But even if my life was wonderful; I would still vote if I had yes on this question for those truly at their end stages and should not have to suffer and not have to put their families through that pain of watching them in pain.
Again, if one has kids and can physically and emotionally be there to help raise and support them and are healthy enough to do so, then no you should not kill yourselves just because life sucks. You had kids then you live for them.
I don't know if it can be stressed enough that this question wasn't designed depression alone

Um... czar. Or tsar, or even tzar, if you prefer. And if your daughter didn't know who Madam Curie was by the time she got to college, that's on you.

As an experiment, just called my high-school educated daughter.

"Quick, who's Marie Curie?"
"Discovered radium and radioactivity. Killed her of course, but she got a couple of Nobels out of it. Why?"

She also knows who Sandra Fluke is, and how to spell czar.

If your kids are ignorant, the problem isn't Salem State, it's that you failed to provide a foundation.

I'm sorry Jim. From your post it seems as if you have a problem with your daughter in nursing school learning about Madame Curie? I hope I was misinterpreting.

I don't know who her professors are, but I went to Salem State and I never heard a professor tell a class who to vote for in any election that took place while I was there. I had a double major in English and History. I would think that if any professor was going to talk about elections at all, it would be a History professor. They didn't when I was there.

I'm also confused about your comment regarding your daughter and who is in control of her body. Shouldn't your daughter be in charge of her own body? Who else would you want to take on that role?

Also, spelling seems to be a lost art on the Patch. It's 'czar' or sometimes 'tsar,' not 'Zar.' And I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that Sandra Fluke is the "Condom Zar" [sic]. I respectfully ask you to take a moment and read her testimony objectively:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/mar/06/context-sandra-fluke-contraceptives-and-womens-hea/

I hope you're OK. I really do.

"Kids are no longer ashamed of being ignorant."

my sides, oh god my sides

A breathing heart?! That's terrifying! Does this heart have it's own set of lungs? Does it have other organs too? Is there is a little mini heart inside? A brain? Is it sentient? Gah!

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, Indian giver be the name of the Lord.

Whine whine whine.

But hey, it's your free time. Do with it as you will.