A special opportunity for our town

This year, Bedford voters will be considering steps to upgrade our elections to Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) through Warrant Article 5.

When:

Monday, November 3, 2025 - 6:30 PM

Registration opens 5:30 PM.  

If necessary, session will continue an additional night.

Where:

Bedford High School Auditorium

9 Mudge Way, Bedford, MA 01730

What does it mean to vote YES on this warrant article?

If Bedford Special Town Meeting votes YES: 

The Selectboard will send a “Home Rule Petition” (HRP) described by the warrant article to our state legislature, which will ask permission for the town to hold a binding referendum to decide on implementing ranked choice voting. 

If the state legislature approves the HRP:

The referendum will be held, and if Bedford's voters then pass it, ranked choice voting will be implemented for our local elections only -- state and federal elections will not be changed.

Current state of Bedford elections

What boards we elect

In our town, we elect residents to the following bodies:

Selectboard (5 elected members), Board of Assessors (4), Board of Health (6), Library Trustees (7), Housing Authority (5), Planning Board (5), and School Committee (5).

Board member terms

All of these bodies have "staggered terms", which means that their members are not all up for election at the same time, providing continuity of experience across elections.

What contests we vote on

Bedford typically holds elections in odd years, every two years. For each board we elect, it is most common to be electing two members at a time, with any number running. 

How we use our ballots

Voters are currently allowed pick as many candidates as there are members being elected. So if there are two Selectboard seats being filled, and five candidates running, you may vote for two, one, or none of the candidates. If one seat is being filled, you may only vote for one candidate.

How votes are counted

The candidate "picks" a voter has made on the ballot are totaled up for each candidate as votes and the candidate with the most votes wins. If you voted for two candidates, there is no way to tell which one you liked better and so it's possible that your second vote may contribute to your favorite candidate being beaten.

Bedford elections with ranked choice

What boards we elect

No change.

Board member terms

No change.

What contests we vote on

No change.

How we use our ballots

Instead of "picking" a number candidates up to the number that are running, voters may rank multiple candidates. It's typical for ballots to support ranking three to five candidates.

How votes are counted

Ranked ballots are counted using "instant runoff voting" - see the explainer videos below. With this method, counting begins looking only at voters' first choices on their ballots. If a candidate has a majority of these, they win.

If no candidate has a majority, the one with the fewest votes is eliminated. Their supporters' ballots are then counted for each voter's next choice and the total retabulated:  Does any candidate have a majority now? 

The process repeats until one does. If multiple seats are being filled, then after the first winner, the ballots are simply counted again, ignoring the winning candidate(s) on the ballot, in order to find the next winner.

What other Massachusetts towns want to use RCV?

Ranked Choice Voting has surged in popularity in Massachusetts in the last 10 years. In 2019, Easthampton joined Cambridge as the second city in the Commonwealth to upgrade to ranked choice voting. 

Seven other cities and towns have passed charter changes or home rule petitions similar to the Bedford proposal that are before the legislature. They are Acton, Amherst, Arlington, Boston, Brookline, Concord, Lexington, and Northampton. Somerville is voting on a charter change this November that calls for the formation of an official Ranked Choice Voting implementation committee. 

In addition, there are currently active citizen efforts underway in cities and towns like Brockton, Burlington, Medford, Melrose, Needham, Nahant, Newton, Northborough, Salem, and Westborough.