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Where and when can I vote?

You can cast your vote at a polling station on election day (September 1). Based on where you live, you are assigned a polling station. Using your address, you can find your assigned polling location here. 

Poll locations are open from 7:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. on election day.

What races are relevant for Allston-Brighton?

Most notable for Allston-Brighton: William Brownsberger (incumbent) and Daniel Lander will face off in the Democratic primary for Massachusetts State Senator representing the Suffolk/Middlesex District (which covers Allston, Brighton, Belmont, Watertown, West Cambridge, Fenway). There are no Republican candidates running for this position in the primary.

Brownsberger has served in the senate since 2011 where he is the President pro tempore and is running for his ninth term. Lander has campaigned for Senator Elizabeth Warren and has worked in City Hall as a senior policy advisor to Mayor Michelle Wu.

At the House of Representatives level, Michael Moran and Kevin Honan, two incumbent representatives that cover Allston-Brighton, are running uncontested.

Along with other voters across the state, Allston-Brighton voters can also elect their party’s candidate for U.S. Senator, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Treasurer, Secretary, and Auditor. Notably, incumbent Senator Edward Markey is facing Seth Moulton in the Democratic primary for state senator.

Information about the candidates running for state senate on Allston-Brighton issues

State senator candidates William Brownsberger and Daniel Lander sit down with Allstonia

See the video conversation with the state senate candidates here: State senator candidates William Brownsberger and Daniel Lander sit down with Allstonia. We also provide a summary of the conversation below.

Housing

Both candidates acknowledged that there was a housing crisis in Massachusetts. However, they emphasized different approaches when it comes to housing.

Brownsberger focuses on facilitating the production of market-rate housing. Within the next few years, he hopes to work to liberalize zoning and facilitate the permitting process to make it easier to build housing. He points to his support for the MBTA Communities Act and the Affordable Homes Act.

He opposes the local option to the real estate transfer tax, which would give cities and municipalities the power to levy an additional tax on high-value property sales to fund affordable housing.

“We’re not going to spend our way out of the housing crisis,” Brownsberger says. Similar to his reasons for not supporting rent control, he believes that the transfer tax will decrease the production of housing. In addition, he says that there’s no assurance from communities that revenue generated from a transfer tax will go toward affordable housing.

On the other hand, Lander supports this local option to the transfer tax, citing his advocacy for the tax during his time in City Hall as the reason he began running for state senate. In addition, his approach to housing seems to focus on partnering with housing authorities to build social housing.

“I’m most excited about how we turn our housing authorities like the Boston Housing Authority or Cambridge Housing Authority into public developers who have the resources and the tools to build social housing at scale,” he says.

He says that these housing authorities need more money from the state. He also points to speeding up the process of building and funding new affordable housing. He calls for a “different level of ambition” when it comes to maintaining and sustaining affordable housing infrastructure so that it could last.

Rent control

Both candidates have opposing views when it comes to rent control/stabilization. The issue, which places a cap on how much rent can be increased per cycle, was on the ballot this November. However, over the summer, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled to remove the question from the ballot. 

Daniel Lander says that the benefit of rent control is that residents can plan for how much rent could increase when it comes time for renewal. Lander had previously championed a bill during his time working with Mayor Wu and sent a bill on rent control to the Massachusetts House of Representatives where it did not get a vote.

“This is a big priority for me: to make sure that renters are protected. They know you can plan and they’re not worried you’re going to get priced out overnight,” he says.

 Brownsberger opposes rent stabilization. 

“Rent control just doesn’t work. It’s not going to bring your rent down. Nobody has a formula to bring your rent down,” he says. Brownsberger says most proposals for rent controls, including the one originally on the November ballot, allows for some increases due to inflation, and landlords will go as high as the law allows. In addition, he believes that as long as rent control is in place, the state will not be producing any rental housing. 

Instead, Brownsberger says that the state is working more broadly to reduce the cost of living in Massachusetts, including paying for MassHealth, increasing state aid on college education, and covering the majority of the cost for rides on the MBTA.

“We’re doing a lot to help people’s total budget go down. The housing side of it, I agree. I feel the pain,” he says.

Allston Multimodal Project 

In an interview with Allstonia earlier in June, Brownsberger feels that the issue underlying the Allston Multimodal Project is the “complexity of the problem” and the difficulty in building consensus. Brownsberger says that his role is to support the project as it moves forward.

“I’m saying to MassDOT. You, whatever you guys work out, I support. I’m not going to make your job harder at this stage,” he says.

During a debate hosted by Allston-Brighton Progressives, Brownsberger defends the notion that the project is not moving forward, pointing to the regular update meetings and the Lincoln Street bike path and noise wall that is scheduled to begin construction this fall according to the June meeting for the project.

“They’re working through that process now, and we are getting moving on some of the down payment pieces of it,” said Brownsberger during the July debate. 

In the same debate, Lander says that the MBTA has been “sandbagging” the project with its decision to put a diesel train parking lot in Allston-Brighton. He says that removing that component of the project will allow the project to move forward by effectively neutralizing the 300 million dollars lost from federal funding. 

In an interview with Allstonia, Lander says that a state senator should use their “bully pulpit to draw attention, attention, attention” to the issue from Governor Maura Healey and interim Secretary of Transportation Phillip Eng. 

“There is no political will right now to move it, and this is going to be one of my top priorities to move this forward,” says Lander. 

Transportation

Lander supports a 24-hour bus service for the MBTA, saying that many residents in Allston-Brighton that work late shifts have limited options when it comes to getting home from work affordably. 

“We don’t have to run the bus every five minutes at 4:00 A.M., but it needs to be an affordable and reliable way to get around.  That could really unlock economic mobility,” he says. “If the T wanted to do it, they could do it tomorrow.”

He also supports fare-free bus routes as well as congestion pricing that could help expand transit and mitigate the environmental impacts of cars. 

Brownsberger has taken all modes of transportation to the state house, including driving, running and cycling. He says that pedestrian and bike safety, such as improving state-owned bike paths, are a central priority for him. 

He has also campaigned for a faster regional rail on the Worcester line and Fitchburg line (the Worcester line runs through Boston Landing in Allston while the Fitchburg line runs through Belmont — both of which are in Brownsberger’s district). However, he says this issue has taken a back seat as the MBTA has run into issues with lack of staffing to maintain service during COVID. For now, he has worked on measures to increase funding on the T and supporting the MBTA leadership under its CEO Phillip Eng. 

“That’s what matters most to this district is good quality reliable Green Line service and bus service,” he says. “Once they have that done, I’ll come back to the regional rail issue. Right now, I’m focused on supporting the MBTA through a difficult process of catching and rebuilding the organization.”