"The wisdom of pre-empting legislative action is another factor," Sacks told the court.

The assistant attorney general also said Bourquin and Burton A. Nadler, the other attorney, had failed to show that they could successfully challenge the constitutionality of the vote.

Therefore, Sacks said, the Superior Court "abused its discretion" in issuing the order.

Defining a Ballot

Sacks argued that the definition of "ballot" has changed with the development of new voting technologies.

"On a voting machine there is no real 'ballot' in the sense of a piece of paper on which voters mark their choices," Sacks told Armstrong yesterday.

Sacks said the introduction of voting machines in the early 1940s prompted a 1941 act that defined "ballot" to include the strip of paper above the levers in a voting booth.

"Printed material presented to the voter during the voting process was deemed part of the 'ballot,' even if the voter did not mark his or her choices on that printed material," Harshbarger wrote in a 22-page memo accompanying the state's appeal.

Bourquin strongly disagreed.

She said the 1941 case only allowed for two separate votes: one for referenda, one for public officials. "If you can't fit these summaries on the voting machine, then have a separate ballot," she said.

Bourquin said the constitution must be strictly interpreted. "Those are not merely advisory or directory requirements," she told Armstrong. "They are mandatory and must be complied with."

Bourquin, a Cambridge resident, said that certification of the questions would pose an immediate threat to state voters.

"Right now, people throughout the Commonwealth are getting notices their rents will be doubled, tripled or quadrupled," she said. "They're going to have to make decisions about how much rent they're going to pay, where they're going to live, how their children are going to go to school."

She said the temporary restraining order is a needed measure before the constitutionality of the referenda is decided once and for all.

"There is not other preliminary relief that has any possibility of being effective," she told the court.