Politics & Government
Selectmen Discuss Permanent Electronic Voting Implementation
The feedback has been positive, so officials are looking toward permanent implementation of electronic voting for Wayland town meetings.
Electronic voting received overwhelmingly positive quantitative and qualitative feedback following its testing run at Wayland’s April Town Meeting. Monday night, the Board of Selectmen discussed the next steps toward making electronic voting a regular feature at future town meetings.
“I think that the feedback that the committee received was collectively positive,” said David Bernstein, chair of the Electronic Voting Implementation Subcommittee. “The next right step would be to put an article before the town.”
That article, Bernstein recommended, should include a process for funding electronic voting as well as outline how the town should use the technology. Since there isn’t going to be a November town meeting in 2011, the article could first come before the town at the spring 2012 meeting.
Even though the town cannot vote to permanently implement and fund electronic voting before the spring 2012 meeting, Town Administrator Fred Turkington said that there should be sufficient funds in the town meeting budget to cover the costs of electronic voting at that meeting.
Bernstein said the recommendation moving forward is rent, rather than purchase the equipment and support services. A ball park figure of less than $25,000 was mentioned early on as sufficient to rent enough handsets and technical support to cover up to 500 attendees.
Selectmen Joe Nolan pointed out that the first day of town meeting can draw as many as 750-800 people, and asked about the additional cost to cover additional handsets.
“I don’t want to choose electronic voting over everyone being able to participate,” Nolan said.
Bernstein, however, assured selectmen that an additional 250-300 handsets could be added while keeping the rental cost below $28,000.
Dennis Berry, town meeting moderator, told selectmen that he had heard much positive feedback related to electronic voting, and while he needed to remain neutral in the decision due to his role as moderator, he admitted, “There’s no doubt [electronic voting] takes a load off the moderator’s back.”
Unanimously, selectmen voiced approval of electronic voting, but also expressed some concerns about the costs involved. Selectmen John Bladon, in particular, urged Bernstein to be diligent and thoughtful when it came to developing the article that would address how to fund and use electronic voting.
“It’s concerning to me because we hear day in and day out that our taxes are too high,” Bladon said. “And electronic voting, although it’s a great thing, it’s a ‘nice to have,’ not a ‘must have.’”
Wayland must go through a bidding process, in addition to the town meeting article, before awarding a company with the contract to supply electronic voting. Turkington and Bernstein agreed at Monday’s meeting to begin working on the paperwork and figures necessary to pursue that bid.
“We’d be looking for any successful bidder to provide the same class of service or better than what we received during the experiment,” Bernstein said.
In addition, Berry will begin recruiting individuals to serve on a new committee, which will work toward the permanent implementation of electronic voting.
“The last [committee’s] charge was about making the experiment work,” Bernstein said. “This [committee’s] charge is about acquiring the right equipment and services at the lowest cost.”
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