This story by Tommy Gardner was first published in the News & Citizen on Oct. 26.
Elmore residents will soon decide whether to continue holding the traditional Town Meeting Day that annually attracts scores of peoples to the cozy lakeshore town hall or to switch permanently to Australian ballot voting, which saw as much as five times higher voter turnout during the pandemic.
On Thursday, Nov. 16, Elmore residents will discuss and vote on three measures that will determine the shape of democracy in the town for years to come — whether to adopt all budget articles by ballot; to elect all its officers by ballot; and to vote on all public questions by ballot.
The town selectboard will hold a series of special informational meetings ahead of the vote, all of them at the town hall:
• Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 6:30 p.m.
• Saturday, Nov. 4, at 10 a.m.
• Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m.
Warren West, a member of Elmore’s three-person selectboard, said the meetings will also be broadcast remotely, all to make sure as many people know what they are voting on come Nov. 16.
“I’m just hopeful that we get as many people as possible out on the 16th of November, so we can learn what the citizens of Elmore want to do with our future voting,” West said.
The Legislature and Gov. Phil Scott relaxed Vermont’s public meeting rules during the pandemic to allow towns that normally hold Town Meeting Day in person to do it by ballot, but those temporary measures will sunset next year.
West said Elmore residents attending this past March’s annual meeting voted to decide whether to move to Australian ballot voting before Town Meeting Day 2024.
West said some people are bound to be confused about why a vote to move away from in-person voting must be done in person. In short, Vermont’s public meeting rules require towns holding votes about whether to use ballots for town business to have those votes taken in person, if that’s how the town normally conducts its annual meeting.
This means that, if all three measures pass, Nov. 16 could be Elmore’s last proper in-person town meeting.
The town wouldn’t be alone among its neighbors.
Morristown residents petitioned the government to put the matter to a vote during a special in-person meeting in April and the residents — who filled the Peoples Academy auditorium and spilled over into the cafeteria — unanimously chose to effectively end its in-person annual meeting.
Stowe’s selectboard recently decided to put the question to a vote at next March’s annual meeting.
In both those neighboring towns, the conversation starter was the vastly increased number of residents voting on budgets, elections and other matters — such as Morristown voters disallowing ATVs on Morristown roads or Stowe voters opting to leave the merged Lamoille South school district.
In Stowe, during the 2022 mid-term elections, when the town mailed ballots to everyone, more than 2,000 people voted. This past March, when Stowe went back to an in-person town meeting, 150-200 people voted on a $16.6 million budget.
In Morristown, one of the people behind the petition to move to Australian ballot voting said that, in the five years before the pandemic, an average of 200 people participated annually in town meeting. But in 2021 and 2022, the number of people voting by Australian ballot skyrocketed — 1,371 people voted in 2021 and last year 1,458 voted, most of them before the actual day of the meeting.
West said there were similar patterns in Elmore, and shared recent town meeting voting trends:
• In 2020, a week before the pandemic, Elmore had 744 registered voters and 83 people attended the in-person meeting, a turnout of just over 11 percent.
• In 2021, there were 765 registered voters, and 270 voted by Australian ballot, a 35 percent turnout.
• In 2022, the second straight ballot vote year, there were 754 voters and 343 voters cast ballots, for a turnout of 45 percent.
• This year, as Elmore went back to a traditional in-person annual meeting, 66 of the 743 registered voters attended. That represented a turnout of just under 9 percent.
“That should let you know that more people can be available if they can vote all day, instead of showing up at a particular hour on a Tuesday,” West said, adding that many voters were able to vote absentee in the years where Australian ballots were used.
He refrained from advocating one way or another on Nov. 16, saying he just wants to get as many people as possible to the town hall that evening.
“There’s a tradeoff of access versus tradition,” he said. “I’m just glad we’re giving the citizens of Elmore a chance to air their opinions.”
