The recent Debt Exclusion vote for the proposed “Bloom” Lexington High School raises an important question: Are Lexington’s Town Meeting Members truly representing their constituents?
Bottom chart: Town Meeting appropriation vote, using the same color scheme.
The charts tell the story at a glance.
In the top chart, each of the nine columns shows how residents voted in December. Precinct 5 stands out with a nearly half-blue column (44% NO), and Precincts 7 and 9 also show large blue sections, both above 40%. Only Precinct 3 leans heavily orange, with about 72% YES.
Now compare that to the bottom chart, where the Town Meeting vote—taken one month earlier—shows almost no blue at all. Even in precincts with sizeable public opposition, the TMM columns are overwhelmingly orange. Precincts 3, 4, and 5 show zero blue, meaning not a single representative voted NO, despite substantial NO votes from their residents. On average, about one-third of voters in several precincts had no representation in Town Meeting on this issue.
Representation should mean more than casting a vote—it should reflect the community’s actual views. TMMs represent roughly 125 residents each, or about 45 actual voters based on turnout. That small ratio makes communication, transparency, and accountability essential.
Taken together, the two charts reveal a clear disconnect: Town Meeting’s vote did not closely mirror the people it serves. That gap matters—not just for this project, but for trust in our local democratic system.
It may feel like tilting at windmills, but representation is only real when it matches the people’s voice.
I attended as a citizen–I’m not a Town Meeting member–the session that this letter refers to. Much of the Town Meeting debate centered on the importance of giving the voters of Lexington a meaningful opportunity to make their voices heard through a debt exclusion election–a powerful, quantifiable, democratic form of decision-making. My interpretation of the Town Meeting vote is that the vast majority of TM members deeply believe in democracy and, regardless of their personal views of the LHS building project, they wanted the people of Lexington to make the final decision. In doing so, they did indeed admirably represent their constituents.
It’s my understanding that TM members voted YES as Jeri had noted to bring the vote to the people of Lexington. That said, when mentioning that 92% of TM members voted YES on flyers and advertising in support of article 8 they failed to mention that TM’s YES vote included giving the citizens the ability to vote on article 8. The TM YES wasn’t only about funding the LHS project. Knowing this TM members may not have agreed with the ‘funding’ portion but did want to bring the vote to the people of Lexington so they casted a YES vote. Therefore, one could say, highlighting the 92% only for ‘funding’ the new LHS, was a marketing tool – ‘heard mentality’- which could have influenced the public’s YES vote, but I could be wrong:)
‘herd’ typo all thumbs and auto correct:)
Laura and Jeri, the TMM vote required a 2/3 majority to pass, while the public vote needed only a simple majority of over 50%. If the TMM had truly represented the will of the people, the Bloom would have had to be reconsidered, and the School Building Committee would have needed to listen more attentively to community opinion. In that case, the town likely could have reached a compromise that still secured state support.
Lana, thank you for sharing. My comment is about how when TMMs voted YES, there were 2 parts to the vote. To vote for the public to be able to vote they also had to vote for funding the project. That said, 92% of TMM voting YES may not have been for the funding it may have been for the public to be able to vote. Therefore, Lana I am in agreement with you in how this particular decision may be an inaccurate representation of public opinion. If the debt exclusion vote had been in 2 parts one for funding and the other for public voting data may look different.
I have the impression that many citizens in our community were worried that this was an all or nothing situation when in-fact the idea of not having a new school was never in the cards. They see 92% voting for funding and they think well I should too.
Not to beat a dead horse but there are ways of going about building a beautiful new school that will minimize the burden on taxpayers along with getting MSBA support, but it didn’t fit their agenda. Considering there wasn’t a NO campaign the voters who turned out to vote NO is pretty telling. As I commented before we all have the same goal of having a new LHS we just have different ideas of how to make it happen. Maybe the NO voters will be proven wrong; I sure hope so.
Jeri Zeder’s (who is partner to Select Board and key School Building Committee Member Joe Pato) comments run absolutely opposite to what many Town Meeting Members have told (and emailed) me and others in public. Many members say they vote what they think is “best for the town” and do not see themselves as being representative of residents in their precincts. I have seen no evidence that TM systematically reach out (beyond maybe friend group) to residents for positions or to consider impact of voting. I don’t know if there is any requirement in the town’s charter that demands this. Often TM email addresses provided by the TMMA bounce or are unanswered. I think this is a core problem with the town meeting form of government – particularly in light of the expected rise in population with the new zoning multi-family developments. Given the huge mistakes with zoning and the growing diversity of our town, I think it’s time Lexington serious consider moving toward a city governance structure.
Town Meeting Members, in this case, didn’t have to reach out to hear the opposing views. The views of both sides were widely publicized… probably the most widely publicized of any issue the Town has faced. Who could miss them?
What’s the point of having representative voters (which is the State’s description of Town Meeting Members) if the expectation is that they should vote the way the loudest of their constituents want them to vote?
If we are just Delegates rather than Representatives, then let’s skip the middle man and go back to open Town Meeting and hope that the self-selected assortment of citizens that shows up to vote at open Town Meeting are an accurate cross-section of Town-wide opinion.
And if we are Delegates, then give us a budget so that we can poll the real opinion of our precinct’s voters to ensure that our votes will reflect the real views of our constituents (who may or may not have been following the issue closely) instead of making a guess based on the angriest and loudest among us.
Town Meeting Members are obligated to read and hear the facts, data and opinions, sort out what looks to them like BS from what seems like verified fact and vote for what they feel is best for the Town.
And if you are interested in being an informed representative, consider running for Town Meeting!
New candidates must obtain nomination papers no later than 5:00 p.m., Thursday, January 8, 2026
Candidates must file completed nomination papers with the Clerk’s Office for certification no later than 5:00 p.m., January 12, 2026.
See this Town Clerk document for all nomination details:
https://lexingtonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/15823
I disagree with the conclusion drawn from the two charts shown in this article. In the 2024 presidential election, 36% of Massachusetts voters supported the Republican candidate, yet there is zero Republican representative in the state’s congressional delegation.
Unlike proportional systems used in many European countries, the percentage of votes in the U.S. does not necessarily correspond to the percentage of elected representatives. As a result, large voting blocs can end up with no representation at all, even when they constitute a substantial share of the electorate.
Dazhi Tan, it sounds like you’re talking about the Electoral College used in U.S. presidential elections. In that system, the popular vote in each state usually turns into a winner-take-all result. That’s why Massachusetts, with its Democratic majority, typically ‘swings’ all 11 electoral votes blue. And when it comes to our congressional delegation, Massachusetts has nine districts where Republican voters are spread too evenly for any one district to elect a Republican representative.
In our case, however, Town Meeting Members are supposed to represent their constituents, independent of party affiliation—clear and simple. These charts show an alarming discrepancy between the People and the TMM. Hopefully, democratic principles will prevail in Lexington, and our representation will correct itself.
Thanks for the reply, Lana. What I meant was that we can’t conclude from this data that TMMs failed to represent the 45 voters they each speak for. For example, if hypothetically 62% of those 45 voters every TMM represent supported the measure, we would expect all the TMMs to vote “yes”. In that scenario, the town meeting would show 100% yes votes rather than 91%.
Of course, in reality, some TMMs likely represented neighborhoods where fewer than 50% voted yes, so it’s reasonable that they themselves would vote no.
Given that, the discrepancy between 62% support among voters and 91% support at town meeting doesn’t seem unusual to me. It’s well within the normal variation you’d expect in a representative democracy.
Unfortunately, these two charts represent two statistically significantly different groups: the p‑value is about 9.2×10-7.
This means there is only about a 0.000092% chance of seeing a discrepancy this large if the difference were purely random in any normal analysis of election data in a representative democracy.
Hi Lana. I’m not sure how you calculated the p-value, but I assume it was computed simply by comparing the TMM distributions with the voter distributions. That approach would make sense under a pure proportional-representation system. However, with a district-based system (here assuming each “district” is the 45-voter bloc represented by a TM), the calculation should instead proceed as follows:
1. 62% of all voters voted yes.
2. For each TM’s 45-voter bloc, if >50% (i.e., at least 23 voters) vote yes, the TM would vote yes; otherwise the TM would vote no.
Under this model, the probability that a TM would vote yes is:
q = P(Bin(45, 0.62) >= 23)
q is about 95%.
Since we observed a 91% yes vote from the TMs, this actually suggests that the TMMs underrepresented voters who would have voted yes.
Of course, these are hypothetical scenarios. I fully support your proposal that TMM–voter communication should be improved. My only point is that we cannot conclude that the TMMs are not representative of voter sentiment simply by comparing the two sets of bar plots.
A more straightforward analogy is that although 36% of Massachusetts voters supported the Republican candidate, the probably that he would win Massachusetts was not 36%, but instead next to zero.
Dahzi, thank you for correcting the statistical analysis.
The town meeting results absolutely reflect the general mood in the town. AND we also know that, because opponents of the BLOOM project were defeated by large margins in the March town elections.
Patrick Mehr received 27% of possible votes, Dawn McKenna 44%, (Both running against BLOOM in different ways). Joe Pato got 56% (double Patrick) and Vineeta Kumar 54%.
(I am calculating based on total votes cast including blanks, with the max for each candidate at 50% of the total votes, given voting for two candidates).
For the school committee, Lana Panasyuk (anti-bloom) received 36% of max possible votes, Larry Freeman 58% (pro-bloom) and Eileen Jay 61% (recused).
Its also interesting to look at the town meeting members results. Patrick Mehr received 32% of possible votes for town meeting and was not elected; 10th place in his precinct. Max % for that precinct was 66%. Lana Panasyuk received 40%, not elected, 9th place, max votes was 61%. Dawn McKenna was elected with 58% of votes, 2nd place, max was 62%. OG, another vocal anti-bloom person, received 39% of votes in the same precinct, 8th place, not elected.
The high school project was a big factor in this election (along with mbta zoning). There was significantly higher turnout than a typical town election, and anti-bloom candidates did not fare well. This is all democracy in action, and the results every time citizens voted, or expressed opinions through surveys, were in favor of the project and process moving forward.
Dazhi, from your letter published today, it seems our analyses rest on different assumptions. First we need to ask: What is the role of a TMM? Are they functioning like an Electoral College (your assumption, effectively winner-takes-all), or as a representative sub-set of voters (my assumption)?
If TMMs were acting like an Electoral College, we would expect zero ‘No’ votes. In reality, about 10% of TMM votes were ‘No’—not zero—despite every precinct majority voting ‘Yes.’ So the ‘district-based representative democracy’ model isn’t supported by the data.
If TMMs are meant to be a representative sub-set, then some deviation from the public vote is normal, but the size matters. The data show that over 30% of TMM votes would need to be reassigned to match constituent preferences. That’s a large effect, not a minor variation.
Overall, the data suggest TMMs are voting based on their own preferences (and who chooses to run), rather than truly representing their precincts.
So the real question is: What should we do about it?
Lana, thank you for this excellent analysis of how TM is out of sync with Lexington electorate!
As to Jeri’s defense of TM’s vote: When I vote on which TM members will represent me, I always try to find out if the candidates are capable of understanding/doing the analysis required for the many complex issues on which TM has to vote. Asking voters to decide if Bloom was the right or wrong solution meant that each voter needed to do a lot of work in order to cast an informed vote. If it is the responsibility of voters to do all of the work, than TM is unnecessary or even harmful (see TM votes in 2023-Art. 34 that brought us the MBTA over-zoning fiscal disaster).
I am disappointed to have some TM members in my precinct tell me (and others) that they know what was right for Lexington and my opinion does not matter. I hope they take some time for self-reflection.
I believe that we need an impartial committee of residents who are currently not holding any elected/appointed position to examine:
1) How Lex. government provides information to citizens (issues with Public Records Requests),
2) How ideas/comments in opposition of a govt. proposals are handled, and
3) Why the many town committees are always staffed by the same people, and how to get committees with more diverse opinions.
I hope that all of us can take the time to focus on family and friends and enjoy the holiday season. We can get back to politics in the new year. Happy holiday season!
Many Town Meeting and committee members have said the same thing Jeri did: giving voters the choice is the right thing to do. This concept is appealing and I agree with it. But I’m compelled to point out some hypocrisy here: when several of us tried to give voters the choice to reduce the CPA surcharge, most of these same people said No – they refused to give voters the choice. Why is It the correct thing to do when giving voters the choice to raise their taxes but not so when it comes to reducing their taxes?
Town Meeting’s vote on Article 8 at the recent Special Town Meeting 2 is not taxation without representation. That’s a non sequitur, because it’s being applied to elected town meeting members. If you don’t like the votes being cast by your elected town meeting members, run for town meeting.
Olga Guttag wrote: “I am disappointed to have some TM members in my precinct tell me (and others) that they know what was right for Lexington and my opinion does not matter. I hope they take some time for self-reflection.” Olga, just wondering, are you inferring that your vote doesn’t matter because the vote didn’t go your way or did one or more town meeting members tell you to your face that your opinion doesn’t matter?
I’m proud of my “yes” vote on Article 8 and of my “yes” vote on December 8th, not because I know what is right or because I’m smarter than people who don’t hold the same opinion. I’m proud of my vote because I voted my conscious for what I personally believe is best for the future of Lexington. By the way, I didn’t vote “yes” as a sheep being lead to the slaughter or because I was bamboozled by the School Building Committee or any other board, committee, or department involved in the decision making process for the new high school. From the beginning I carefully considered the information and data provided by both defenders and opponents of Bloom. Using my own critical thinking skills I concluded that Bloom was not only the best choice, but the only choice worth considering.
Aviram, I thought that I clearly stated that “… tell me (and others)” – it means that they said to me, either in person or in an email, that my opinion is irrelevant. I do not believe that is what representative form of government means. I do not need my representatives to substitute their values for mine. I think that part of the problem is how the ballot for TM candidates is laid out. It clearly gives incumbents the advantage. Lana’s graph shows that there is something wrong with how Lexingtonians are represented in local government. Rather than being defensive, I hope our elected representatives will start thinking about how to fix this clear problem.
Olga, you’ve spent years thinking deeply about how Lexington is run and have given your time and energy to Town Committees and Boards. My remarks aren’t directed at you — they describe the model you already embody.
Avram was right: if residents want their voices heard, they should run for Town Meeting. But real influence doesn’t start or stop there. It begins much earlier, in the months before Town Meeting, when the groundwork for decisions is being laid. That’s when the Select Board, School Committee, and the many Boards and Committees across Town are meeting, debating, and shaping the proposals that later appear on the Town Meeting floor.
Most of the real work — the research, the policy framing, the hard choices — happens in those rooms long before a vote is taken. If you want to shape outcomes, not just react to them, that’s where your time and input matter most.
Between Town Meetings and referendums, civic engagement takes effort. But that’s how Lexington residents turn thoughtful opinions into meaningful action — and keep our local democracy thriving.
I will reprise some comments I recently made on this subject:
“I can’t think of any votes submitted to the voters at large in Massachusetts that require more than majority support. Even amending our state constitution requires only a majority. Instead, we typically ensure broad buy-in by requiring some form of approval from multiple bodies. For our constitution, the other body is the state legislature, which must approve proposed constitutional amendments twice before they go to the voters. For the high school, it is Town Meeting, which did have 2/3 majority requirement in its vote (91% voted in favor). And in fact Town Meeting voted twice on the issue, having defeated a nonbinding resolution to delay the project last year (90% voted against).
There are also a variety of other bodies that have given, or will give, their approval to the project–some of those are legally required, and some were integrated into the process to ensure a wide range of ideas and a broad base of support.
…
Town Meeting must approve borrowing by 2/3, whether it’s open Town Meeting or representative Town Meeting. A simple majority suffices when the debt exclusion question goes to the voters at large, here and elsewhere. And I suspect there’s a good reason for that: Town Meeting can build a level of consensus that’s really hard to get in a town-wide vote on a large project with a municipality our size. Among all the debt exclusions the town has held, by my count, only one has ever received 2/3 support from the voters, so I certainly wasn’t suggesting I think we’ll see the 91% Town Meeting support replicated in the election here.
Although Town Meeting members vary a lot in how much prep work they put in, at the very least they are sitting through article presentations and debate on the night of Town Meeting. Since everyone participating has some common baseline of information, it’s easier for a common view to develop. (That’s in addition to … self-selection effects…)”
Beyond that, Dazhi Tan is correct that many systems for electing representatives tend to magnify differences in voter opinion. TMM elections are theoretically different from most state and national elections in this respect, because we use multi-member precincts, rather than single-member districts, and so it’s entirely possible for people to win a seat even if they hold minority views in their precinct. (True proportional voting would be tough to implement, because we would need to have candidates run by party.)
But because we have large multi-member precincts, TMMs do not in fact represent 125 residents each; they represent thousands of residents each, and each resident has 21 representatives. Given that, if each TMM had conformed their vote to their constituents’ preferences, 100% of TMMs would have voted in favor of Article 8, since a majority of voters in every precinct ultimately voted in favor. (In practice, determining constituent preferences is not trivial, so, whether or not it would be desirable, TMMs do not perfectly conform their votes to constituent preferences.)
I think it’s important to note that only 1/5 of the registered voters voted Yes to a major tax increase on all the residents. That doesn’t seem equitable.
Yes, I’m sadly curious myself — the birthplace of the American Revolution that once fought against English taxes.
I think much of this discussion comes down to the question: what do we mean by representation?
For example: Lana’s letter suggests that her view is that there should be some sort of numerical parity between a Town Meeting vote and a townwide vote on a citizens referendum on a similar issue. MA Thenen’s comment suggests that his view is that when 1 in 5 voters turn out for an election, the result is not (representationally?) equitable.
For me, representation has a number of aspects:
• When I vote for those running for elected office, I vote for people whose values most align with mine. If they win, I’ll often contact them with my views on particular issues and ask them to champion those views. I don’t, however, expect that they will always do so. Public policy, governance, and legal procedure and substance are too complex, I believe, for me to expect that. Since I trust their values and respect their expertise, I’m satisfied if they simply take my views seriously and then use their best judgment.
• Low voter turnout in local municipal elections is a longstanding problem (at least I think it’s a problem) in American politics, and Lexington is not exempt. But I do not agree that an election with a comparatively low turnout is somehow inequitable or otherwise illegitimate. I respect the outcome of elections as long as there is no evidence of voter suppression, and as long as the rules about voting and elections are not discriminatory, and are pre-announced and knowable by everyone and applied equally. We don’t live in a compulsory-voter country. People are free not to vote.
• When elections involve a citizens referendum like a debt exclusion (as opposed to voting people into elected office), then representation means to me that all laws, rules, and regulations were and are respected and followed, that there was ample opportunity for members of the community to express their views in the shaping of the issue, and that the proposal that the municipality puts before voters can be reasonably explained and defended in all salient aspects. That leaves lots of room for disagreement—and that disagreement ultimately gets settled in an election.
• (Parenthetically: As for representation in Lexington’s Town Meeting: I agree with Benjamin Lees’ statement that I, as a resident, am represented by the 21 Town Meeting members from my precinct. When I contact my TMMs on an issue, I contact all 21 of them because I am the constituent of all of them.)
• (Also parenthetically: there are other possible explanations for why the Town Meeting vote on Article 8 was 91%. One is that 91% of TMMs wanted to allow voters to decide the matter in a referendum question. Another (not mutually exclusive) is that the arguments against Article 8 simply were not persuasive to the vast majority of TMMs. Note that a 2/3 voting requirement for passage is a minoritarian policy. To defeat a measure requires that only 1/3 of TMMs be persuaded to vote against it—a far lower bar than a majority-vote requirement.)
What does representation mean to you?
To elaborate a bit on my remarks, I’ll plagiarize what I said in 2024, after the Town Meeting vote on pausing the high school project—incidentally, it was in response to Lana:
“Constituent feedback was not my primary tool for making this decision–I am trying to act for the benefit not only of those residents who make their voices heard, but also those who don’t, and those who have not yet moved into town, and those who are not yet born. But I did read each of the emails I received from residents regarding Question 8, including yours, whether or not they were in my precinct. They largely urged me to vote no.” [that is, in favor of Bloom]
As it happens, this year I got a grand total of 3 emails to my precinct email address, all urging me to vote yes on Bloom. There was a fair amount of discussion on the Lexington List email group, and I participated in that. There, too, most of the commentary was in favor of Bloom, with much of the opposition coming from a handful of people repeating themselves over and over.
Nevertheless, I listened to the “no” voices quite closely. If I had found them convincing, I would have voted no, even though they appeared to be in the minority. (“We’re just sending it to the voters” was a rationale some TMMs adopted, but that’s certainly not how I viewed it, and if I had been reached in the line for debate, I would have urged my colleagues to treat it as a vote on the merits.)
All of which is to say that I agree with your view of the nature of Town Meeting “representation.” I would just add that as a voter, even our picture of a candidate’s values can be pretty limited, since they do not run on a party ticket, and a non-incumbent isn’t going to have past votes you can look at. As in a state or national election, it comes down to some mix of perceived ideological alignment; assessment of character, judgment, and experience; reputation; personal familiarity; “vibes”…
(Bonus parenthetical: For over a hundred years, the Massachusetts constitution has specifically said that the state legislature can implement compulsory voting (Article LXI). Yet despite being the US pioneer in adopting the “Australian” secret ballot, our legislature has never seen fit to adopt that other notably Australian election practice. It would be one way to boost voter turnout! But like every tweak, big or small, to a system of government, there are tradeoffs.)