This article by Tommy Gardner was first published in the News & Citizen on Nov. 22.
Elmore residents will continue to conduct their town’s business in person, rather than by ballot.
Voters recently rejected three separate measures to move the town budget, elections and any other future municipal miscellany to Australian ballot. The selectboard had agreed to host the special Nov. 16 town meeting after some residents suggested that the temporary pandemic-era change to votes by ballot led to higher voter turnout.
Sixty-eight people turned out for the Thursday evening meeting, and the vote to reject conducting town business by Australian ballot was done on a roughly two-to-one margin.
Longtime moderator Jon Gailmor said he was heartened by the civility expressed by people in favor of keeping the town meeting tradition and those arguing for greater access via all-day ballot box voting.
“People really just love this place. I mean, everybody here just loves and treasures Elmore, as I do. It was an affirmation,” Gailmor said.
Elmore resident Vicki Solms, however, was frustrated with the outcome. Solms has been advocating for ballot-style voting and pushed the town selectboard to call Thursday’s meeting, but when the night finally came, she fell ill and couldn’t make it out to argue her case.
That, she said, underscores the problem of someone only getting a say in town governance if they show up to a meeting.
“Such a small percentage of people should not be deciding everything,” Solms said. “That is not true democracy.”
The number of people who attended the Nov. 16 special meeting nearly mirrors Town Meeting Day attendance this past March. By contrast, in 2021, the first year the town conducted its business by ballot, 270 people voted. Turnout in 2022 for the second straight ballot year was even higher, with 343 Elmore residents casting ballots.
The number of registered Elmore voters in recent years has fluctuated between 743 and 754, which means about 9 percent of people attended the special meeting this month, compared to the 45 percent who voted by ballot on Town Meeting Day in 2022, many of them ahead of time with absentee ballots.
Gailmor said as an Elmore resident he felt the vote “was a great moment for the community,” but as moderator he had to temper those feelings while he oversaw the proceedings. He said he sees his job as moderator to act as “a conduit” for the people and make sure they understand the issues, not advocate one way or another.
He said it was clear that voter turnout is better with Australian ballot than with in-person meetings, but some in town suggested a compromise, such as changing the day and time of the annual meeting to make it more accommodating for people.
“I think that assuaged the anxiety that some people had,” he said.
He said there are other ways for residents to have their voices heard outside the annual meeting or special town meetings or elections, namely by attending the informational meeting and any number of selectboard meetings throughout the year, particularly during budget season.
Gailmor said the first Tuesday in March remains his favorite day of the year and has been since he moved to Elmore in 1980 and experienced his first Town Meeting Day.
“I’ve never experienced democracy in such gloriously human form. It’s very moving,” he said. “I mean, a lot of people speak about democracy and spout off in glittering generalities, but when you attend town meeting, you see it in action, and there’s no substitute for it.”
He said he likes to recite a Town Meeting Day invocation — attributed to Danville resident Toby Balivet — which underscores the spirit of civility.
It reads, in part, “Let us remember that there is an immense gap between saying, ‘I am right,’ and saying, ‘I believe I am right.’ And that our neighbors with whom we disagree are good people with hopes and dreams as true and high as ours.”
Solms, however, dismisses high-minded ideas of community gatherings being a pure form of direct democracy as a relic from a century ago, saying “we live in a different world now.” She said for all the stated benefits of being able to amend things from the floor in an in-person meeting, voting is still a binary choice, and the best way to ensure local democracy is giving more people a chance to vote.
“It’s just a time for people to bitch and grieve, pardon my language,” Solms said. “So, they can have their town meeting if they want and sit and crochet, and I’m sorry if I’m being kind of rude now about this, but it’s not 100 years ago.”
