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Page 10 THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, August 22, 2025 VOTERS | FROM PAGE 1 er in the decision — dismissed the formal objection placed before it for consideration by Ward 4 School Committee candidate Jeffrey Donahue against incumbent Dawn Macklin. Donahue had formally challenged Ward 4 School Committee member Macklin’s candidacy as well as the assertion of her residency in the city of Malden. Donahue’s stated intention was to have Macklin’s name removed from the ballot for the planned, three-candidate Municipal Preliminary Election for Ward 4 School Committee, set for Tuesday, September 16. After over two and a half hours of sworn testimony from both Donahue and Macklin, presentations of written evidence, copies of documents and verbal assertions from the two parties, as well as from city officials, a vote was taken. Voting to dismiss the objection at the meeting held this past Saturday, August 16, in the City Council Chambers at Malden City Hall were City Solicitor McNeil, Board of Registrar of Voters member/City Clerk Carol Ann Desiderio, Board Chair Jean Voltaire and Board member Kathleen Young. Voting against dismissing the objection was interim Board member David D’Arcangelo. D’Arcangelo, a former Malden Councillor-at-Large and commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, had been appointed as an interim Board of Registrar of Voters member by Mayor Gary Christenson for this investigatory session, City Clerk Desiderio stated at the beginning of the morning’s proceedings. The session was led by City Clerk Desiderio, who was seated at the podium along with Board of Registrar members Voltaire and Young, as well as Malden Elections Coordinator Dinah Fajardo. A fourth listed member of the Board, Jessica Sherman, was not present for Saturday’s early morning proceedings, which began promptly at 8:00. While present for the entirety of the meeting and providing answers, explanations and testimony on behalf of the City Clerk’s Office, Fajardo was not one of those voting on the matters at hand on Saturday morning. Malden City now, the incumbent Macklin. The top two vote-getters from the September 16 preliminary election will advance to the final election on Tuesday, November 4. On questioning generated City officials are at the City Council Chambers dais to hear testimony from candidate Jeffrey Donahue (seated at right of podium) with a ballot challenge objection on incumbent Ward 4 School Committee member/candidate Dawn Macklin (seated at left of podium). (Courtesy Photo) Solicitor Alicia McNeil, who participated in the meeting virtually, via a Zoom-like setup, did vote on the matter of Donahue’s formal ballot challenge. Donahue made three points of contention as the basis for his objection to the incumbent Macklin’s name being on the ballot as a candidate for Ward 4 School Committee. He challenged the manner and timing of how the candidate obtained nomination papers from the City Clerk’s Office; that Macklin was not a resident of Ward 4 at the time she took out nomination papers for the office of School Committee; and that her principal residence was not in Malden at all, but in another community; thus, he asserted, negating her ability to run for office in Malden. Over two hours of back-and-forth debate and discussion on all the contended allegations followed, where Donahue, at one point, produced what he said was real estate ownership documents in which Macklin allegedly referred to a home she owned in South Yarmouth, Mass., on Cape Cod as her principal residence. Most of the participants in the session, including both candidates, City Clerk Desiderio and City Solicitor McNeil, repeatedly referred to a prominent case law example in this matter, Dominik Lay v. City of Lowell of 2023, in reference to points in the respective arguments. Macklin countered with assertions that in the mortgage agreement of the South Yarmouth residence, it listed a clause whereby it allowed the mortgagee to use it as the principal residence due to extenuating circumstances. She agreed that she did list the South Yarmouth home as the principal residence but cited family health concerns as her reason to maintain a residence in Malden as well, as health care in the Malden area is vital to those family concerns. The Ward 4 School Committee member noted the deep roots she has forged in the city of Malden since her arrival here in 2015, with several rented apartments, including her most recent rental, whose lease included a confirmed Ward 4 address on Main Street and was dated July 24, the deadline date for taking out nomination papers for office. Mackin also detailed her activity both professionally with her work situation in the greater Malden area as well as her service as Ward 4 School Committee member since first being elected in the fall of 2021. She ran unopposed in that election, with an open seat when longtime School Committee member Leonard Iovino did not seek reelection. She was reelected, unopposed, to a second term in 2023. She has also been involved in a number of volunteer organizations, including one she started at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, “Merry Malden,” which provides holiday gifts to needy children and their families. Her candidacy for reelection to a third term took a different turn this year, when she moved from a Ward 4 address to another apartment located on Summer Street in Ward 2 — apparently in February 2025, according to testimony Saturday — and originally announced she would be seeking to now become the Ward 2 School Committee representative, challenging longtime incumbent Robert McCarthy Jr. For a number of weeks, Macklin was listed as a challenger in Ward 2 to McCarthy on the Election Roll Sheets. As she detailed in a recent Campaign Announcement published in the Advocate on August 5, Macklin detailed how she officially suspended her campaign for the Ward 2 seat on July 12, then found a new apartment in Ward 4. “After securing an apartment in Ward 4, I pulled nomination papers for Ward 4 School Committee just before the deadline on July 24, 2025. In an amazing and almost impossible feat, I was able to organize a full campaign, knock on doors and drive to collect the necessary signatures in just one weekend – an effort that typically takes months for most candidates,” Macklin stated in the announcement published in this newspaper on August 8. “But that last-minute scramble was not just about getting on the ballot, it was about proving what I’ve always believed: dedication and determination can move mountains. I am running for re-election because there is still so much more work to do in our schools and across our city,” she continued in that announcement. At the time of the switch back to a Ward 4 candidacy, the candidates certified for the ballot for that School Committee seat were Donahue, a former Ward 4 Councillor, and two political newcomers, Abeer A. Annab and Katzia Marie Small. Donahue said on Saturday that one of the reasons he entered the race was because of the fact there was an open seat and no incumbent. At this point, there will now be a four-candidate preliminary election for Ward 4 School Committee, with the aforementioned three candidates and from Donahue’s contentions, Malden Elections Administrator Fajardo recounted how Macklin advised her she was suspending her Ward 2 campaign, then, on the morning of the last day possible, the deadline for taking out nomination papers — July 24 — emailed her and indicated she was sending her husband to get those sheets at City Hall later that day. Less than an hour before the deadline of 5:00 p.m., at about 4:17 p.m., Fajardo said, Macklin’s husband did indeed arrive at the City Clerk’s Office and take the nomination papers. As she indicated in her campaign announcement, Macklin also was able to submit some 78 nomination signatures by the July 28 deadline for that step. Donahue challenged whether Macklin was a resident of Ward 4 when she took out nomination papers and then submitted signatures. The Ward 4 School Committee representative offered a copy of the lease of her newest apartment on Main Street in Ward 4, which all agreed was dated July 24, exactly on the deadline. City Clerk Desiderio led a final, detailed exercise with a series of individual votes on whether Macklin was eligible as a candidate under Commonwealth of Mass. election law, and by three unanimous, 5-0 votes, it affirmed she 1) did adhere to election law in the nomination process; 2) was a Ward 4 resident at the time of nomination; and 3) was a resident of Malden, while also maintaining a residence in another community (South Yarmouth). The final vote to dismiss the objection was not unanimous, as D’Arcangelo, the interim member, voted “no” as against dismissal. City Clerk Desiderio stated that Donahue has 10 days from the date of the vote to file an appeal of the Malden Board of Registrar vote. It was not able to be determined at Advocate press time if an appeal was being considered by Donahue in this matter.

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