This is the piece that I am most proud of. I spent seven months researching and writing it.
On May 3rd, 2023 I was walking my dog in the local dog park when I ran into my neighbor, a Town Meeting Member. The Town election had been the day before, so we were both excited to talk with each other about election results. He asked me if I had heard the crazy news. Assuming he meant the election results, I told him I had. But I quickly realized he was not talking about election results. He was talking about late mail-in ballots.
Another Town Meeting Member from our precinct had received emails from a number of constituents complaining that they had not received their vote-by-mail ballots with enough time to mail them back before election day. That Town Meeting Member sent an email to the Town Meeting Members Association Listserv, but no one engaged. So I dove into it.
Initially thinking it would be a regular news article, I asked my friend Payson to co-write, and I scrambled to schedule interviews for the next day. I even interviewed the Town Clerk from a track meet I was competing in. I ended up spending the next seven months conducting dozens of interviews, sifting through spreadsheets of data, and interviewing dozens of voters.
When the article was finally published, it was discussed and applauded at a Brookline Select Board meeting the next week. Since the article was published, the Town has installed three new ballot drop boxes at various public locations around town. I also wrote a follow up article.
