But Nadler attempted to distance the suit from politics. "This is a case between the voters and the secretary of the Commonwealth," he said.

The plaintiffs--led by Carol R. Tobias, a Dorchester resident--are seeking a new election to decide the questions. Their lawyers have also filed 46 affidavits demonstrating irregularities where voters did not receive the approved summaries at their voting sites.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Tobias said she was given an editorial from the Boston Herald when she voted.

Ultimately, the plaintiffs are seeking invalidation of the five referenda. "We want the questions to go on the ballot in the form that the constitution provides," Bourquin said.

Armstrong said he would only rule on whether to nullify Zobel's restraining order, not on whether the state law permitting paper summaries is constitutional.

But he recommended that the charges of irregularities be separated from the constitutional challenge.

The justice said it is the job of the Superior Court, which granted the original restraining order, to decide the constitutionality question. However, the issue can also be referred directly to the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), he said.

About the only thing both sides agree on is that the SJC will almost certainly hear the case. "The case is heading for the SJC one way or another," Sacks said in an interview.

Reactions to the delay were mixed.

"People knew exactly what they were doing," said Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. "We are in the most critical time of the retail year."

"Millions of dollars in lost revenue that cannot be recovered" will result from the halt on Question 5's enactment, Hurst told reporters.

"Never has the electorate in Massachusetts gone to the polls and been so well-informed and well-educated," Connolly said. "There were fewer blanks on the ballot questions than there had been at any time in the past."

"To thwart the will of the people on this issue will be a mistake," the secretary of state added. He insisted that the voter information guides sent to state voters, and the paper summaries, sufficiently informed people at the polls.

"We had over 2.2 million voters who went to vote who knew what they were doing," Connolly said. As for the irregularities, he said only an "incredibly inconsequential number" of voters had not received the correct summaries.

But Nadler said the issue hinges around justice. "If it's only one voter who's deprived of that right [of information], that's not appropriate," he told reporters.

"Our fate was on the line on a ballot question that had no description," agreed Matthew Henzy of the Massachusetts Tenants Organization. "We feel some people voted yes not knowing the harm it would do to the people."

The issue may even extend further than this year's state referenda.

Connolly noted that punch-card machines, which are used in some polling precincts, have had physically separate paper summaries for state referenda since 1986.

"If the court were to invalidate the five questions, they could go all the way back to 1986 and invalidate every election since that time," Connolly said