Midterm elections 2022: Voting in the Boston area

Election Day is Nov. 8, but many are voting beforehand in Massachusetts using mail-in ballots or voting early starting Saturday.

Why it matters: Your elected officials can help shape the future of the state's abortion protections, transportation funding, billions of dollars of federal COVID-19 stimulus and infrastructure spending and more.

• All nine congressional seats are contested. While Democrats retain strong leads in Massachusetts, any upset win could affect which party controls the U.S. House in 2023.

Voting in the Boston area

Registration: The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 8 election is Oct. 29, next Saturday. You can check your registration status here.

Early voting: Early voting begins Saturday, Oct. 22, and runs until Friday, Nov. 4.

• In Boston, most polling spots for early voting are open 11am-7pm. The early voting polling locations also take mail-in ballots. Check the city’s map of early voting locations and drop boxes for mail-in ballots.
• For everywhere else, look up your city on the secretary of state’s early voting search to find polling locations and hours.

Mail-in ballots: The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot is 5pm on Nov. 1, a Tuesday.

• Each ballot includes paid postage so you can mail it back.
• If you’ve already received your ballot, mail it ASAP. Election clerks will count ballots that come in as late as Nov. 12, but only if they’re postmarked by Election Day.
• Check the status of your mail-in ballot through the state’s Track My Ballot webpage.

We've broken down the major statewide races below.

Governor: Geoff Diehl (R) vs. Maura Healey (D)

Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey retained a double-digit lead in the Massachusetts governor's race over former state representative Geoff Diehl in a Suffolk University/Boston Globe/NBC10 Boston/Telemundo poll out this week.

Healey has pledged to continue protecting abortion rights in Massachusetts, proposed raising the child tax credit and committed to investing in behavioral health and other services for K-12 school students.

• If elected, she would become Massachusetts' first openly gay governor.

Meanwhile, Republican nominee Diehl opposes vaccine mandates, supports “empowering parents and ensuring school safety” and wants to take a fiscally conservative approach to allocating state resources.

• Diehl opposes abortion but has said he would respect the state law that codified abortion rights.
• The Republican nominee has garnered support from former President Trump.

Current Gov. Charlie Baker, a centrist Republican, declined to run for re-election.

Attorney general: Andrea Campbell (D) vs. Jay McMahon (R)

Andrea Campbell, the former Boston city councilor, has a wide lead over her opponent and would be the first woman of color elected to statewide office in Massachusetts.

• She has pledged to defend abortion rights protections.

Jay McMahon, the Republican nominee, is a trial attorney from Cape Cod who vows to be tough on crime by prosecuting minor offenses like shoplifting and driving with a suspended license. Former Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins famously opted against prosecuting such offenses.

• When asked by GBH News, McMahon didn’t say whether he would defend the state’s abortion rights protections but noted that being anti-abortion doesn’t mean he wouldn’t enforce state laws.

Auditor: Anthony Amore (R) vs. Diana DiZoglio (D)

Diana DiZoglio, the Democratic state senator from Methuen, had a nearly 15-point lead over Republican Anthony Amore in the latest poll from Suffolk University/The Boston Globe.

• Both candidates have garnered attention as comparatively moderate candidates.

DiZoglio served in the state House from 2013 to 2019, before joining the Senate. She has supported certain pay increases for Beacon Hill staff and pushed for extending a law allowing to-go cocktails.

• DiZoglio said she would review state government contracting, including the small share of contracts going to minority-owned businesses, and examine the state police commission's implicit bias training rollout.

Amore is an art theft expert who works as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's director of security and chief investigator.

• Baker endorsed Amore in September.
• Amore says he would audit the office of the state auditor, which he says has slowed in its duties in recent years, and look into college costs, unemployment insurance, nursing homes and other facets of government.

Secretary of state: Insurance worker Rayla Campbell (R) vs. incumbent Bill Galvin (D)

Incumbent Bill Galvin leads the race with 52% of support, the Suffolk/Globe poll indicates. Republican Rayla Campbell has 25%. Another 6.8% backed Green-Rainbow Party candidate Juan Sanchez.

• If elected, Galvin would be secretary of state for an eighth term.

Campbell, who has worked in insurance and claims management, became the first Black woman to make the ballot as a secretary of state candidate.

• If elected, she said she would do away with mail-in voting and call for mandatory voter IDs.
• She sparked outrage this year by using vulgar language to falsely claim that public school fifth graders were being urged to perform sex acts with one another.

Massachusetts ballot questions

We've broken down the statewide ballot questions for you over the past few days. Take a look.

Question 1: Should Mass. approve a new tax for Bay Staters earning $1 million or more?

Question 2: Should Mass. overhaul dental insurance?

Question 3: Should voters change the number of booze licenses available for retailers?

Question 4: Should Mass. let immigrants without legal status apply for driver’s licenses?

Boston’s ballot also includes two “non-binding” questions.

Question 5: Voters in 20 House districts across Massachusetts can vote on whether their state representatives should support a single-payer universal health care system, per WWLP.

Question 6: Voters in 19 House districts can choose whether their state representatives should support making the House disclose online how lawmakers vote on bills in legislative committees. (The House rejected efforts to publicly disclose those votes last year.)

More midterm elections news from Axios:

• Midterm elections 2022: What matters
• Abortion looms over 2022 state ballots
• Tracking candidates endorsed by Donald Trump