These remarks were shared at Upper School Chapel on November 8, 2024.
I want to share with you a glimpse of where I came from and the traditions of democracy that I witnessed in New Hampshire, where I lived for almost twenty years before coming to Portland. On election night, in a small New Hampshire town called Dixville Notch, the first votes in the country are cast right at midnight. It happens in a little town hall with a wood stove, where the six registered voters come in, one by one, to mark their ballots. Each vote is opened and read aloud by officials, while the votes are tallied on a whiteboard for all to see. A golden retriever with an American flag bandana, wanders through the room, monitoring the vote count. It’s a simple process that reminds us of something huge: every single vote, each voice, matters. In Dixville Notch that night, the six votes were split evenly—three for each candidate. To me, it felt like a reminder of how democracy works, multiplied millions of times across the country.