North Shore Community Short Circuits Electronic Town Meeting Vote Push

DANVERS, MA — A years-long push to move to electronic voting at Danvers town meetings went down to defeat this week with town meeting members siding with the traditional voice votes, backed by a standing or roll call option, over the purchase or rental of electronic "clickers" used in Hamilton, Wenham, Marblehead and many other Massachusetts towns.

Town Meeting member Lauren Steeves was a chief proponent of the technology that she said would verify transparency and accuracy in the system that primarily relies on a town moderator's interpretation of a voice vote among more than 100 town meeting members, with the option for town meeting members to call for a standing or roll call vote immediately if there is any doubt in the moderator's initial ruling.

• Danvers To Consider Shift To Electronic Voting At Town Meeting

"At its core, this is about accountability, transparency, public trust and confidence in the outcome of town meeting votes," she said. "When government votes on behalf of the public, the public deserves certainty in the outcome, transparency in the process, and accountability from the people elected to represent them.

"This article is not based on the belief that our current system never works. Our current system can work. But it relies on human estimation first and correction second. It relies on someone recognizing uncertainty and publicly challenging a vote in real time before the moment passes.

"Electronic voting removes that uncertainty altogether."

But those opposed cited the cost of the voting "clickers" and the potential time that using them would add to a town meeting that generally flies by with few contested articles and votes.

Cost estimates ranged from $30,000 to purchase the voting machines to $7,000 each town meeting to rent them.

"This is a solution in search of a problem that already has a reconciliation," Select Board member Gardner Trask said. "There is no necessity to spend money at a time when we are cutting positions at the schools, in the town, and we are cutting services; there is no reason to spend whatever amount of money."

Ironically, the initial voice "no" vote on an amendment that would have changed the Finance Committee's unfavorable recommendation on the article to a favorable recommendation from the Select Board was challenged, with that "no" vote holding up by a 70-52 margin.

In an ensuing vote, the article itself went down to defeat via a voice vote that was not challenged.