Brookline residents planning to file warrant articles for the Fall 2026 Special Town Meeting must learn a new set of formatting rules before the Sept. 3 filing deadline or risk having their electronic submissions rejected.
The town announced Monday, Aug. 17, that all electronic warrant article submissions must now comply with a new Brookline Warrant Article Submission Style Guide and use a mandatory Word template. The warrant closes Thursday, Sept. 3, at noon.
PDFs and images will no longer be accepted. Documents must be in MS Word format (.doc or .docx), and petitioners must use the town's template without changing fonts, text size or styles.
The shift is driven by a federal mandate. The U.S. Department of Justice's Title II digital accessibility rules require municipalities with populations over 50,000 to make all public-facing digital content accessible by April 2027. Brookline exceeds that population threshold, according to a GovTech report on the compliance timeline.
The town said the new standards are a legal mandate, not an optional guideline, and that staff will not accept electronic versions that don't comply.
What petitioners need to know
The style guide requires text alternatives for all non-text content, including graphs, maps and schematics. Hyperlinks must be descriptive: phrases like "click here," "read more" or bare URLs won't pass. The town recommends running Microsoft Word's built-in Accessibility Checker but notes it alone is not sufficient.
The electronic formatting rules do not replace the existing requirement to file the warrant article, explanation and at least 10 signatures of registered voters on paper, in person, before the warrant closes. Electronic versions must be emailed to [email protected].
A pilot run
The town is treating this fall's cycle as a pilot. Staff said they welcome feedback so adjustments can be made before the Annual Town Meeting in spring 2027.
ADA Coordinator Sarah Kaplan is the town's point of contact for questions about the new requirements. She can be reached at [email protected] or 617-730-2329.
As we reported Aug. 6, the Fall Town Meeting warrant opened earlier this month with several housing-related articles already in the pipeline. Any petitioner who has already begun drafting should check the new template and style guide before the Sept. 3 noon deadline.
