---
type: "Bill"
title: "An Act validating the results of the special election held in the town of Hardwick on January 18, 2025"
description: "Message from Her Excellency the Governor (under Section 8 of Article LXXXIX of the Amendments to the Constitution) recommending legislation relative to validating the results of the special election held in the town of Hardwick on January 18, 2025."
jurisdiction: "us/states/ma"
legislature: "Massachusetts General Court"
session: "194th"
identifier: "H 4004"
citation: "Massachusetts H 4004 (194th)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: []
version_count: 1
action_count: 13
vote_count: 0
first_action: "2025-04-03"
last_action: "2025-08-20"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/5854cde8-f188-4872-9fbf-04c344f30fca"
source_url: "https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H4004"
source_hash: "8bf857688d7742e1061adc960acade7a83de05be572cef8111d0f1605c7d37e9"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ma"]
---

# Massachusetts H 4004 (194th) — An Act validating the results of the special election held in the town of Hardwick on January 18, 2025

Message from Her Excellency the Governor (under Section 8 of Article LXXXIX of the Amendments to the Constitution) recommending legislation relative to validating the results of the special election held in the town of Hardwick on January 18, 2025.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H4004.pdf)

## Sponsors

- Maura T. Healey — primary (organization)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2025-04-03** Read; and referred to the committee on Election Laws `referral-committee`
- **2025-04-07** Senate concurred
- **2025-04-28** Hearing scheduled for 05/06/2025 from 01:00 PM-04:00 PM in B-1
- **2025-07-10** Bill reported favorably by committee and referred to the committee on House Steering, Policy and Scheduling `committee-passage-favorable, referral-committee`
- **2025-07-14** Committee reported that the matter be placed in the Orders of the Day for the next sitting
- **2025-07-14** Rules suspended
- **2025-07-14** Read second and ordered to a third reading `reading-2`
- **2025-07-23** Read third and passed to be engrossed `passage, reading-3`
- **2025-07-24** Read, rules suspended, read second and ordered to a third reading `reading-1, reading-2`
- **2025-08-14** Taken out of the Orders of the Day
- **2025-08-14** Read third (title changed) and passed to be engrossed `passage, reading-3`
- **2025-08-18** Enacted `passage`
- **2025-08-20** Signed by the Governor, Chapter 18 of the Acts of 2025 `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/5854cde8-f188-4872-9fbf-04c344f30fca`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Massachusetts legislature records).