Former Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen eyeing 2026 election reform ballot question

A coalition that includes former gubernatorial candidate and Harvard professor Danielle Allen is staffing up in an attempt to field a ballot question during the 2026 election that would ask voters to approve a new preliminary election system and sign-off on campaign finance reforms.

The move by the Coalition for Healthy Democracy, which Allen serves as a senior advisor to, is its second attempt at advancing an election reform ballot question after it briefly floated, raised money for, and filed paperwork for five separate measures ahead of the 2024 election.

In a job posting reviewed by the Herald, the coalition calls for a campaign manager to lead the “building phase” of a 2026 ballot question that implements a nonpartisan preliminary election over the state’s partisan primaries and reform campaign finance to end “the influence of foreign governments in our election.”

“You will take the helm of a campaign at a time when there is building momentum for democracy renovation in Massachusetts. You will report to the Coalition Cabinet, including its ex officio members, committee chair, John Griffin, and senior advisor, Danielle Allen,” the posting said, referring to Allen’s colleague at her firm, Partners in Democracy.

In an interview with the Herald Thursday morning, Griffin said the coalition is in an “exploratory phase” for the two policies described in the job posting, both of which were part of the ballot question push in advance of the 2024 election.

“The real thing that we’re doing now is just trying to conduct this exploratory phase, determine what the next steps are, and make those decisions about whether and when to go forward with the attorney general, with the submission phase,” Griffin said.

A nonpartisan preliminary election, or top five election, according to Griffin, is similar to a system in place in Alaska, where every candidate that runs for a particular office is on the preliminary ballot regardless of their party.

Griffin said Massachusetts voters would pick one candidate and the top five with the most votes move forward to the general election, which is then decided by ranked-choice voting.

“It’s an election reform that’s meant to put more choice on the ballot in the November elections when people come out to vote,” he said.

The campaign finance reform the coalition is eyeing is similar to the language they backed in 2024. The proposal would bar corporations that have “beyond a certain amount” of foreign investment or ownership from participating in elections in the United States, Griffin said.

“Foreign entities aren’t allowed to participate in elections, and this closes a loophole by which they’re currently able to do that through their influence in U.S. companies,” he said. “… It’s also similar to a law that’s in place in another state. This one is in Minnesota.”

The coalition has brought on two well-known political operatives in Massachusetts — former chief of staff to Gov. Deval Patrick and founding partner at Northwind Strategies Doug Rubin and Brian Wynne, former campaign manager and senior political advisor to Gov. Charlie Baker, according to the job posting.

The campaign manager would be responsible for fundraising, legal drafting, strategic planning, data and research, public education and communication, signature collection, voter identification, and hiring finance and field directors, according to the posting.

The coalition is offering to pay the campaign manager between $150,000 to $175,000 for someone to start on the 2026 campaign immediately, according to the posting.

“This position will run through May 2025, with the possibility of renewable through November 2026,” the job listing said.

The coalition first appeared in July 2023, when Griffin and Anna Fletcher, the former finance director at Partners in Democracy, filed paperwork with state campaign finance regulators to back efforts to enact same-day voter registration, a “top five electoral system” for federal and state offices, and limiting the influence of foreign money in the state.

Allen, who ran for governor as a Democrat in 2022 but dropped out of the race months before the election, contributed $50,000 of her own wealth and $30,000 from her state campaign account to the coalition, according to state filings.

But only one of the five ballot questions the coalition supported that allowed for same-day voter registration was approved by Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office.

Griffin said the coalition did not collect signatures for the question after it received Campbell’s sign-off.

“We want to move forward with a package here that gets to this core principle of increasing voice, choice, and fairness,” he told the Herald. “The top five initiative, I think, is pretty central there. And so based on the decision that we got back in 2024, we decided to regroup and come back again in 2026.”

The 2026 election and campaign finance reform push from the coalition is the third ballot question effort to surface for a contest that is still two years away.

Massachusetts Republicans were having conversations over the summer about advancing a ballot question that would attempt to codify into state law a series of restrictions Gov. Maura Healey placed on the emergency shelter system housing locals and migrant families.

Local voters are also in line to face a question during the next election cycle asking them to repeal a new gun law heralded by Beacon Hill Democrats after Second Amendment advocates collected more than 90,000 signatures.

Griffin said the coalition is starting two years before the election to determine the best ballot question language and whether there is “public appetite.”

“Whether or not to move forward is the point here, and we want to have a seasoned campaign manager to be leading that work. So that’s the reason for having a campaign manager on hand at this early point,” he said.