For reason we can debate in the comments, town elections in Southborough don’t have a particularly big draw. At Monday’s election, only 21% of the town’s voting population cast a ballot. Historically speaking that’s about average. Have a look.
Since 2000, the average turnout has been 22%. It’s interesting that the turnout was significantly higher from 2000 to 2004 than it has been in recent years. I wasn’t living in town during that time, so I don’t know what was driving turnout. Any theories? Share in the comments below.
I think those were the school renovation (esp the HS) years…
I think that in local elections money=turnout. Some of the larger turn outs involved either debt exclusions (debt service is not counted in Prop 2.5 and must be approved by the voters) or a 2.5 override.
We have had debt exclusions for the High School, Trottier, Trottier Expansion, Woodward, Finn, Senior Center, and the Beals Property. All of these took place in the late 90’s and first half of the 00’s
There were also 2 or 3 prop 2.5 overrides in that period, the last of which failed.