Clerk proposes voting clickers for future town meetings

Town Clerk Tracy Kenney has proposed a modern technological tool to record voters’ opinions at town meetings: the clicker.

At the February 6 Select Board meeting, while presenting her operational budget requests for the next fiscal year (FY25), Kenney mentioned a $10,000 line item for the rental of 1,000 electronic voting devices. The handheld, battery-powered devices, which resemble a small TV remote, would allow voters to select “Yes,” “No,” or “Abstain” and can record the results instantaneously. Kenney said the devices would only be used for town meeting votes and would not replace paper ballots at the voting booth in a general election.

Kenney said she took more interest in the idea after the November 2023 Special Town Meeting in which more than 1,700 residents cast votes on several warrant articles. Some of the articles, including one to decide whether to authorize an independent audit of the Canton Police Department, required votes to be hand-counted, which delayed the progress of the meeting as counters collected the results across three separate rooms at Canton High School.

Kenney said the use of electronic voting devices offer a much faster, more secure method of voting that would eliminate the need for hand counts and further protect the identity of voters.

In addition to securing the necessary funding to rent the devices, Kenney said town meeting voters would also need to approve a bylaw amendment authorizing the use of such devices to record votes at future town meetings. The amendment could be sponsored by the Select Board, Kenney herself, or the town’s Board of Registrars.

Given the need for this additional step, Kenney said it would not be possible to utilize the devices at the upcoming annual town meeting in May; however, if all goes well, they could be used at projected special town meeting in late 2024 to decide the fate of the Galvin Middle School building project.

Kenney said the town could also opt to purchase the voting devices and is aware of at least three vendors who sell and support this type of equipment.

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Posted by Mike Berger on Mar 1 2024. Filed under News, Town Election, Town Government. Both comments and pings are currently closed.