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For those who see when I mentioned it on Twitter, I made the front page of this week’s Charlton Villager (9.1 MB PDF) due to voting at last month’s Town Meeting.

Basically, the Moderator generally only votes if his vote would change the outcome. (Since if it wouldn’t change the outcome, there’s no point in making an appearance of being non-neutral on a vote, since the Moderator should moderate impartially.) But, the Moderator is a registered voter just like everyone else, with just as much of a say.

In this case, since the motion required a ⅔ vote to pass (meaning the number of Yes votes must be at least two times the number of No votes), and it would have been 85-42 without my vote (and would have passed), I voted No, making it 85-43 and thus not passing. Now, it failed because 43 voters in the room voted No, not just because I voted No. Any person changing their vote could have swayed it in either direction. But because I’m in the front of the room, it becomes news that I voted.