Supporters say ballot questions in Massachusetts aimed at hiking the state's minimum wage, creating nurse-patient staffing ratios and instituting a statewide earned sick time policy have cleared a key signature-gathering hurdle.
Backers of other proposed initiatives, including an expansion of the state's bottle deposit law and a repeal of the state's casino law, also say they've collected more than enough signatures, but were waiting for final tallies.
Wednesday was the deadline to deliver voter signatures to local city and town clerks in order to secure a spot on next year's ballot.
Nearly 69,000 signatures are required — although groups pushing the questions typically collect significantly more.
Not every ballot question crossed the threshold.
Supporters of a plan to make daylight saving time the year-round standard time for the state say they failed to get enough signatures.
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