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Cambridge voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to amend the city’s charter for the first time since 1940, according to preliminary election results released by the city early Wednesday morning, which showed more than three-quarters of ballots in favor.
The most notable shift in the structure of Cambridge’s government was a provision allowing the School Committee to select a chair from among its members as opposed to having the mayor serve as the automatic chair. The move, which was supported by many School Committee candidates, means that the chair will be chosen among members of the School Committee.
The mayor would still hold a seat on the School Committee even if not chosen as chair.
But the School Committee shifts are not the only changes that voters ushered in on Tuesday. The charter also amends the language used in the City’s ranked choice voting system, allowing the Board of Election Commissioners to make changes to the ballot and tabulation process.
The changes are not dramatic. Cambridge’s current ranked-choice system requires candidates to hit a threshold of number one votes, then redistributes subsequent ranked votes across the remaining candidates based on a randomized draw until more candidates clear the threshold. Tuesday’s vote could allow the Board of Election Commissioners to modernize the tabulation process.
The new charter updates Cambridge’s current Plan E Charter, a form of government with an elected city council that hires a city manager to act as chief executive of the city, to align with state laws. The new charter text is organized by articles and uses gender-neutral language to make it understandable and accessible for residents.
The process of writing the new draft before voters began in 2021, when Cambridge voters approved a ballot measure requiring the city to update the city’s charter every 1o years. The Council appointed the Charter Review Committee, which met for 18 months but failed to approve a recommendation on the fundamental question of the city’s strong city manager form of governance.
Many on the Council expressed frustration with the charter review process and felt they needed to put an updated charter on the ballot this November — even if that meant delaying consideration of bigger issues, like lowering the voting age, including more Council authority over the budget process, and reevaluating the long contentious strong city-manager structure of government.
—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.
—Staff writer Jack B. Reardon can be reached at jack.reardon@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @JackBReardon.
