How Democracy Works: From One Nudge to the Next

In nearly 50 years of voting, this was a first: According to results posted by the town of Brookline to its website Wednesday, a candidate I voted for the day before had won by a single vote.
By the time absentee and provisional ballots were counted later in the week, the margin had grown to a whopping three votes.
But the experience of making a real difference in an election -- even if the particular significance of my own vote endured for just a day -- has me assessing what got me to the polls and what might do so again.
It turns out I was among just 5,881 of Brookline’s 36,155 registered voters to show up Tuesday. Even that paltry turnout of 16 percent was ten points higher than last year’s six percent showing.

Town Clerk Patrick Ward told the Brookline Tab that the increase could be the result of more actual contests, with 14 of 16 precinct races contested this year.
As a relative newcomer to Brookline, though, I was unaware of specific races and was alerted to the election only as a result of the sign placed by the town at the Coolidge Corner MBTA stop.
As the day wore on Tuesday, reasons not to vote kept accumulating:

• It’s almost dinner time. Do I really want to hike over to the polling place?
• I haven’t done as much homework on the candidates as I should have.
• The issues at stake locally are far less important to me than the ones swirling nationally.

Left to my own devices, those obstacles would have prevailed. But my daughter, Kate, far busier than her mostly retired Dad, made time to vote. And a few hours before the polls closed, she asked me just when I was planning on stepping up and doing likewise.
So I called the Selectmen’s Office and asked where I could find info about the candidates, and was directed to a League of Women Voters election guide online. I read the statements of as many candidates as I could and made some choices.
As I headed out the door, Kate slipped me a list of candidates recommended by a group describing itself as “a nonpartisan collective of concerned citizens dedicated to electing truly progressive voices to Brookline’s governance.”
Approaching the Park Street polling place, I recognized Bernard Greene, a selectman I’ve met through the town’s Martin Luther King Committee. He’s not on the ballot this year, but was out campaigning for candidates he believes in.
Handing me a brochure for Julie Schreiner-Oldham, a candidate for School Committee, he delivered an impassioned pitch on her behalf: “She’s doing really good work. We’ve got to keep her in there!”
Schreiner-Oldham wasn’t on my list from the progressive alliance, but I figured Bernard knew what he was talking about and I trust his judgment. So I went inside and, in addition to my own choices in various races, I voted for Schreiner-Oldham for School Committee along with the progressive alliance’s picks, Michael Glover and Paul Harris.
Imagine my reaction when, the next day, I read the Tab’s account of the four-candidate race for three seats on the School Committee: “Candidate Julie Schreiner-Oldham took the last seat with 3,042 votes, just ahead of Paul Harris who received 3,041 votes.”
As intrigued as I was that my vote had put someone over the top, I also realized my support for Schreiner-Oldham caused the defeat of Harris -- whom I also voted for.
To be honest, I was relieved to see that the final vote tally showed him losing by three votes instead of just mine.
But more than relieved, I found myself fully engaged in a process I almost stayed home and missed.
As my friend, Kate Ferry Coleman, put it in a comment beneath my Facebook post about the experience: “How democracy works.”
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Bill Mitchell is an affiliate faculty member of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and has taught journalism ethics as an adjunct lecturer at Northeastern University.