Nantucket Special Town Meeting Live Updates

The Current is live from the floor at Nantucket's 2025 Special Town Meeting.

Island voters will decide on two proposals related to short-term rentals (STRs). The two articles offer sharply different visions of how STRs should be regulated. Read our preview here as well as our look back at how the divisive issue has unfolded over the past five years.

6:52 P.M. | We are adjourned. This is officially the shortest Town Meeting since at least 2016, but probably much longer, clocking in at just over one hour - not counting the delay waiting for voters to file into the meeting spaces. The 2020 Town Meeting, held during the Covid-19 pandemic, lasted around 100 minutes. All non-essential articles on the warrant were held until subsequent years, which dramatically shortened the meeting.

6:51 P.M. | And it’s official: voters elected to take no action on Article 2 on a 925-485 vote. Town Meeting is now wrapping up here at Nantucket High School.

6:45 P.M. | Dave Iverson, the sponsor of Article 2, has now risen to encourage voters to take no action on his own article, as it would directly contradict Article 1. Considering that Article 2 would need two-thirds support to pass, it’s extremely likely that the following votes are a formality.

6:43 P.M. | Article One has passed on a 1045-421 vote, with 71% support, ending a five-year stalemate that saw several previous attempts to secure full codification fail. A seismic result for Nantucket, the passage of Article One will essentially moot legal challenges of STRs on Nantucket and will force residents in favor of STR restrictions to change course sharply.

6:34 P.M. | After a mere 30 minutes of debate, we are headed to a vote on Article One. Town Meeting voted 1198-210 to move the question, which forces a vote.

6:00 P.M. | We’ve just wrapped up the first vote of the night. Town Meeting voted 521-549 against having designated pro and con microphones. Alger clarified that around 1300-1400 voters checked in tonight, around 12-14% of Nantucket’s registered voters. That’s lower than the record turnout of 1584 set at the 2024 Annual Town Meeting, but considerably higher than this year’s Annual Town Meeting, which had a maximum turnout of around 7.8% of registered voters. On a test vote, 1383 voters weighed in, which would be a 13.6% turnout, but some could have abstained, despite Alger requesting voters not to do so.

5:44 P.M. | We are now officially underway at the Mary P. Walker auditorium, with some voters in the Nantucket High School and Cyrus Pierce Middle School auditoriums. As Nantucket’s population continues to rise, Town Meetings now consistently spill into second or even third rooms. Part of the reason STM is happening today is that the schools are closed, which makes it easier to set up three different rooms for voters without disrupting classes. All of that work may be going into one of the shortest Town Meetings Nantucket has ever seen: proponents of both articles have called for a meeting that lasts one or two hours, although those plans may be complicated by the lengthy delay caused by lines of voters waiting to be checked in. At any point, anyone can go to the mic and call for a vote, which would cut debate short. A two-hour meeting would be especially notable given that last spring voters spent 2.5 hours on just that meeting’s STR proposals.

5:20 P.M. | As voters continue to pile into the auditorium and the two gyms that are set up for tonight’s meeting, it’s worth taking a look at the recent history of turnout at Town Meeting on Nantucket. Since the 2020 ATM, held during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, every Town Meeting had enjoyed a turnout of over 9%, with a high of 16.2% at the 2024 ATM, until 2025. But the 2025 ATM’s 7.8% turnout isn’t a historical aberration: before STRs became a salient issue on Nantucket, the 2018 ATM had a turnout of only 7.1%, the 2016 ATM had a turnout of 7.3%, and a number of appropriation articles slated for the 2018 STM couldn’t be passed because the 5% quorum needed wasn’t present. The current record turnout is 1584 voters. Could that be broken tonight?

5:09 P.M. | Town Moderator Sarah Alger just took the mic to tell the assembled voters that there are still 400 voters waiting to check in. The meeting won't start until everyone has taken their seats, so it could be a while before we are underway. Expect a high turnout tonight.