It’s preliminary Election Day in Greenfield!

Polls opened at the high school a little over an hour ago.

Turnout looked pretty light when I was there—not a surprise. Turnout always tends to be low for off-year local elections, especially when there isn’t even a mayoral race on the ballot.

And this isn’t even the general election—just a preliminary round to cull the number of candidates running for the four School Committee seats that up for grabs this year.

My own political and policy leanings notwithstanding, I will be interested to see how this election turns out. There are a lot of strong feelings around town right now about the School Committee and the school budget following this past spring’s fight three-way fight between the City Council, the Mayor, and the School Committee over the FY26 budget. The two slates of candidates in the race break down roughly into the two sides in that fight, so I think the outcome of this preliminary election could provide some insight into how the next round of budgeting might play out.