The Campaign: VI

Picking their state administration for the next two years is only part of the job Massachusetts voters will have tomorrow. Every community in the state will have to vote on a least seven referendum questions and some will have as many as ten.

Since many of the referenda are very controversial, politicians expect an unusually large off-year vote. While a big vote normally helps the Democratic party, that may not be the case this year. Some of the most important questions affect residents of non-urban areas which are heavily Republican.

Perhaps the most important issue of these is question number five. If a majority of voters cheek "yes," Massachusetts will get a flat statewide rate for its compulsory automobile insurance. At present the state is divided into zones, with the highest rates in heavily populated sections and lower costs in rural districts. Thus, strong Republican districts--Cape Cod, for example-- must defend their low rates at the polls or suffer an increase next year.

So far, the two referenda that have caused the biggest arguments are three and four. The former would lower the age at which citizens become eligible for old-age pensions from 65 to 63, and raise the monthly allowance from an average of $40 to a minimum of $75; the latter would establish a state-run lottery. The legislature voted down the lottery proposal in 1935, but in 1940 the people in 30 of the state's 40 senatorial districts voted to advise their senators to support it if it were again brought up. This year, faced with an issue that can be debated on both moral and legal grounds, the representatives did not make a decision, but instead handed the problem to the voters.

The main use for the lottery would be to help pay for the new pensions. If referendum three were passed and number four failed, Massachusetts would not be able to support the new program.

This year's ballot will contain some of the familiar questions upon which state residents have been voting for years. Number six would decide the legality of horse and dog racing. Seven includes three questions: the prohibition of hard liquor, wine and beer, and package store sales. This question affects only the voter's own community.

Numbers one and two would amend the constitution: the first to establish an order of succession to the governorship between election and inauguration, the second to increase the number of signatures required under the initiative and referendum rule for putting a question on the ballot. The amendemnt would make this number about 60,000 instead of the present 20,000 to 25.000.

Bostonians will also get a chance to vote yes or no on a 48 hour, five day week for policemen and firemen-- a strictly local question involving only the Hub and Malden. All the state's cities but 49 will also vote on continuance of local rent control through next June. Unless Congress acts, local rules expire at the end of this year except in towns that have already provided for extending them.