Local Governance Study Suggests Limited Impact of Governing Structure on Voter Participation (Updated)

Editor's Note:  Based on a limited sample of Massachusetts towns, Westwood Minute Contributor John Aram presents his finding on his study of the impact of local governance structures - open town meeting with select board, representative town meeting with select board, and city council with city manager/mayor - on voter participation rates. 

He concludes there is no discernible difference of these three local governing structures on voter turnout, but suggests that the key to increasing turnout may lie in changes to procedure. He suggests that policymakers investigate holding biennial local elections, arranging for remote/hybrid voting, increasing efforts for educating voters on the issues prior to elections, and making meetings shorter.

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By John Aram, Contributor

The Massachusetts Constitution grants Westwood and other municipalities the right, within limits, of self-government, necessitating cities and towns to make decisions about taxes, indebtedness, zoning, and a host of other functions affecting the lives of their citizens.

Self-government requires that each community create a structure that formulates and implements policies of the community that accord with citizen needs and interests. In Westwood, that structure includes an Open Town Meeting (a legislative function) and an elected Select Board (an executive function).

A self-governing community is inherently democratic because authority and control reside with its citizens. The question, then, for Westwood and a number of other communities, is how well does the Town Meeting/Select Board structure function? In terms of voter participation, how well is Westwood’s democracy working?

Democratic processes were involved in the recent proposal to construct a new fire station in Westwood and to gain approval for an override of the state’s limitation on revenue increases from property taxes. In Westwood’s 2025 Open Town Meeting, 65.4% of voters approved a proposition to hold a special election to vote on a debt override to finance the fire station project.[1] However, a few weeks later in a special election, the override was rejected by 53.9% of 2293 voters.[2]

Which vote outcome is the true community preference? With greater participation, an election should approximate the true will of the community. One does not know what the outcome might have been if 60%, 70% or 80% of voters had participated. The Select Board has scheduled a special election on the coming September 9 for another vote on the proposed override. The turnout for that vote, and thus how widely it can be said to represent the views of Westwood’s registered voters, remains to be seen.

Given this importance of voter participation on community issues, the following exploratory study asks whether one or another form of town governance appears to be associated with greater democratic participation.

Three Models of Local Self-Governance Are Present in Massachusetts:[3]

1. Open Town Meeting and a Select Board. The town meeting plays a legislative role and the Select Board an executive role for a community. All registered voters may attend and vote once or twice a year on warrants presented to the municipality. Typically adopted by communities with less than 21,000 citizens, 260 towns in MA have this governance structure.[4] As the oldest form of democratic governance from Colonial days, it is the model present in Westwood and other neighboring communities of roughly similar size, such as Medfield, Millis, Norfolk, and Sharon.

2. Representative Town Meeting and Select Board. This model differs from the open town meeting format in that a community, usually between 21,000 and 40,000 residents, is organized in districts and voters in each district elect representatives who vote in the town meeting. Thirty-two MA communities have adopted the representative town meeting format. Nearby communities to Westwood – Fairhaven, Gardner, Natick, Needham, Norwood, and Walpole – have this governance model.

3. Finally, 59 towns in the state generally, but not exclusively, with populations more than 40,000, govern themselves with a city council structure with either an appointed city manager or an elected mayor. Voter turnout in towns similar in population to Westwood in recent elections with a city council form of government in this study include East Longmeadow, Newburyport, Palmer, Southbridge, and Greenfield.

Voter turnout in town meetings and in annual town elections constitutes an important indicator of local democratic functioning. This article uses voter turnout to examine democratic participation in Westwood and in nearby communities of roughly similar size.[5]

What Are the Features of Westwood’s Democracy?

The primary opportunities for democratic participation in Westwood are two electoral events: 1) the annual open town meeting; and 2) the annual town elections for select board, school board members, planning committee, etc.

Town meetings in Westwood are held in the spring each year on a Monday evening. Across eight years between 2018 and 2025, the average voter turnout for Town Meetings in Westwood was 3.9%.

Town elections in Westwood are ballot elections held in all-day, walk-in voting on a Tuesday in the spring each year. Voter turnout for the annual town elections in Westwood for the eight years studied was 17.9%.

Viewed in relation to nearby communities of roughly similar population, democratic participation in Westwood is in general range for both annual open town meetings and annual town elections over the same time period compared to nearby communities in this study:

Comparison of Participation Rates of Registered Voters*

Annual Town Meeting and Annual Town Election, Open Town Meeting Structure

Town (population)	Annual Town Meeting** (percentage of voter participation)	Annual Town Election (percentage of voter participation)
Medfield (12,799)	4.4%	11.2%
Norfolk (11,662)	3.0%	13.6%
Sharon (18,442)	3.5%	17.7%
Millis (8,460)	4.3%	14.6%
Westwood (16,266)	3.9%	17.9%

* Town populations in 2020 national census in parentheses.

** First day only of a multi-day town meeting.

Several conclusions arise from these data: 1) democratic participation is generally low among this sample of communities, both in terms of open meeting and annual town elections; 2) registered voter participation in elections is consistently higher than in the open meetings, undoubtedly due to the perceived significance for voters’ lives of the two elections and the frequent presence of multi-candidate competition, and public campaigning for elective office; 3) Westwood falls within the range of the five communities on both measures of voter participation.

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What Are Voter Participation Rates in Town Elections in Communities Having a Representative Town Meeting Structure?

The representative town meeting structure may encourage democratic participation because town meeting representatives usually are elected during the same election as select board, school board, and other elective positions, asking citizens to participate in municipal elections once per year. In addition, it may be more convenient to vote in town elections when the polls are open all day rather than attending an open town meeting in the evening.

The following voter turnout information for the past eight years is available for nearby towns of roughly similar size utilizing the representative town meeting structure:

Comparison of Participation Rates of Registered Voters

Annual Election, Towns with Representative Structure

Town (population)	Annual Town Election Percentage (%) Voter Participation
Fairhaven (15,924)	15.6%
Gardner[6] (21,287)	25.9%
Natick (37,006)	18.2%
Needham (31,915)	15.5%
Norwood (32,945)	7.8%
Walpole (26,383)	15.0%

With the exception of Gardner, turnout in annual town elections in nearby communities using a representative town meeting structure generally fall within the same range as communities having an open town meeting structure (Norwood falls on the low end of that range). Participation in the annual town election for towns having representative town meetings, appears indistinguishable in these small samples from voter turnout in annual town elections for towns having open town meetings.

Are There Differences in Voter Participation in Annual Elections for Towns Having a City Council Form of Governance?

Town meetings are eliminated in towns with city council governance structures.[7] Voter turnout for five towns with city council structures for the eight years of the study are:

Comparison of Participation Rates of Registered Voters

Voter Turnout: Annual Elections, Towns with City Council Structure

Town (population)	Annual Town Election Percentage (%) Voter Participation
East Longmeadow (16,084)	9.5%
Greenfield[8] (17,706)	34.0%
Palmer (12,448)	4.9%
Southbridge (16,719)	10.1%
Newburyport[9] (18,289)	35.9%

Palmer is an outlier on the low side and Greenfield and Newburyport are outliers on the high side in these data. Other than Greenfield and Newburyport, an argument could not be made about greater voter participation for towns with a city council structure in this sample.

Conclusions

Democratic participation on local issues in moderately sized towns West of Boston is, in general, undoubtedly less than would be ideal from the standpoint of having confidence that election results express widespread town interests. Based on this exploratory study with a limited sample, and strictly from the perspective of democratic participation in local governance, there is no discernable pattern of differences between communities adopting an open town meeting, a representative town meeting, or a city council structure.

A possible exception to this generalization emerging from very limited information is the adoption of biennial local elections, as in the case of Gardner, Greenfield, and Newburyport. There are 55 cities and towns in Massachusetts with biennial elections in November of odd-numbered years. Twelve of those have 2020 populations under 30,000 residents and five have populations under 20,000, like Westwood. Given that a number of factors affect voter participation, further analysis of that pattern may be informative.[10]

A recent study by the League of Women Voters addresses the relatively low voter participation in towns having an Open Town Meeting governance structure.[11] As part of an in-depth look at the Open Town Meeting in six MA communities, pros and cons of the three governance structures in Massachusetts are outlined, although no comparative voter participation information is included.

The LWV study also discusses policies that may increase voter participation in communities having a town meeting structure, such as remote/hybrid voting in order to improve voter accessibility, greater efforts to educate the voting population prior to and after town elections, and increasing the efficiency of meetings by making them shorter. The study also notes a trend toward adopting a city council structure, believed to “...capture efficiencies and increase accountability by redefining elected positions, defining coordination of systems, clarifying budget processes…[12]

According to the LWV study, some communities have experimented with transportation to the polls and/or child care services during Town meetings. No discernable impact has been observed on voter turnout.

In addition, towns might consider Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), a procedure gaining interest in the state and beyond, but not systematically studied in relation to democratic participation. Voters rank order their choices among candidates with RCV, potentially improving voter engagement and achieving majoritarian election results.

Citizens in Brookline, the largest town in MA employing a representative town meeting structure are considering changing to a city council format. As summarized in a recent debate in The Boston Globe between advocates on opposing sides of the question, arguments for change address simpler and more straightforward elections, greater government transparency, and maximizing accountability.[13] Arguments for retaining the town meeting structure point to an apparent absence of material differences in accountability, transparency, and leadership. Plus, this viewpoint asserts that greater efficiency would come with a regrettable loss of citizen participation and a greater cost of campaigning.[14]

These observations indicate that selecting a governance structure involves a number of considerations, including democratic participation. The present study does not suggest there are significant differences in voter turnout among the three town governing structures, but that observation needs to be studied more systematically.

It is possible that procedural changes, such as remote and hybrid voting or biennial elections may serve to heighten democratic participation under any governance structure, and those changes may be worthy of further consideration.[15] No single answer may arise to the issue of citizen participation in elections for towns in Massachusetts. Each community might include its aspirations for democratic participation in an individualized plan that involves an evaluation of its unique characteristics of location, traditions, social and economic composition, growth objectives, and other features of its identity.

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[1]https://www.townhall.westwood.ma.us/home/showpublisheddocument/34908/638834516535630000

[2]https://westwoodminute.town.news/g/westwood-ma/n/311645/westwood-residents-vote-put-breaks-funding-new-fire-station-1

[3] Massachusetts Municipal Association, Forms of Governance in Massachusetts https://www.mma.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/forms_of_local_government_0.pdf

[4] These data and for the other forms discussed below can be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fKbvaP_zynnvvpKOE8dw__hDMPLLwZ74/view.

[5]Information for this study is gained from records available in town and Secretary of State websites and from public records requests to Town Clerks’ offices. The study is exploratory because the sample sizes are small, communities differ in population size and other demographics, and in some cases, available information is limited. The most recent eight years are compared, allowing for elections with varying levels of interest. If a community holds two annual town meetings, only the spring town meeting is included in the study.

[6]Gardner holds town elections biennially in November in odd-numbered years. Thus, the most recent election information is for 2023. The percentage of voter turnout is calculated based on the last seven town elections since 2011 for which information is available online.

[7] Town councils included in this study range from 7 to 11 councilors. All councilors in East Longmeadow and Southbridge are at-large and councilors at Greenfield, Palmer and Newburyport are divided between at-large and district representatives.

[8] Greenfield and Newburyport hold town elections biennially and biennial municipal elections are required by state law to be held on the first Tuesday of November in odd-numbered years. Information for Greenfield’s municipal elections is not available earlier than 2019. Thus, the average is for 2019, 2021, and 2023 only.

[9] Voter turnout information in Newburyport is only available for six years, 2023, 2021, 2019, 2017, 2015, and 2013.

[10] The possible effect of biennial elections merits more thorough analysis. In addition to the three towns holding biennial elections in this study (Gardner, Greenfield, and Newburyport) voter turnout in biennial elections in three larger towns was reviewed: Agawam (28,692), West Springfield (28,835), and Gloucester (19,729). The average turnout for the past eight municipal elections for these towns was 32.2%.

[11] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fKbvaP_zynnvvpKOE8dw__hDMPLLwZ74/view

[12] LWV, p. 11

[13] The Boston Globe, June 23, 2025, A9

[14] The Boston Globe, June 23, 2025, A9.

[15] The information reviewed in this study suggests the possibility that biennial elections are associated with greater voter participation. As mentioned above, as the average voter turnout in municipal elections for the six towns of the study holding biennial elections was 32%, considerably higher than voter turnout viewed by any of the three governance structures studied. It may be that there is a strong tradition of voting in November elections since State and National officials are elected in November of even-numbered years, thus contributing to voter turnout in municipal elections in odd-numbered years.

Updated 8/28/2025 at 10:05 a.m. An error in Endnote 7 has been corrected, where a reference to "Winthrop" has been changed to "Newburyport." Also, a misplaced double asterisk (**) in the chart titled, Comparison of Participation Rates of Registered Voters: Annual Town Meeting and Annual Town Election, Open Town Meeting Structure, that initially appeared next to the words, "Annual Town Election" has now been correctly located next to "Annual Town Meeting." Additional minor edits to the article have been made for clarity.

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You may also be interested in:

- OPINION: Let's Encourage the Tradition of Volunteerism in Westwood for Democracy's Sake

- OPINION: A Newcomer's Perspective of Westwood's 2023 Town Meeting (published May 2023)

- OPINION: Increasing Voter Turnout through Online Voting, Ranked Choice Voting

- OPINION: Pros/Cons of Changing Westwood's Treasurer, Tax Collector from Elected to Appointed Positions (published January 2023)