Above: In a vote at the recent Annual Town Meeting, some clickers that didn’t show “OK” weren’t included in the final result. (images from vendor’s website and Town Meeting video)
Last week, I wrote about issues that were raised about “clickers” impact on a vote over the Police Departments budget at Annual Town Meeting.
The issues are likely to raise concerns from voters who were already worried about the potential use of clickers at the upcoming Special Town Meeting on the Neary Building Project. And that could create headaches for the officials who embraced the potential for clickers to make counting close votes more efficient and accurate.
April 7th wasn’t the first meeting in which voters were given clickers. But it was the first time they were used to count a real vote. Unfortunately, the process didn’t go as smoothly as planned.
Voters learned that not everyone’s votes were counted. According to the Town Moderator and Town Clerk, the issue was caused by having too short of a window for the system to handle the electronic votes. If clickers are used again, that time will be increased.
The Town Moderator has said that he only plans to employ the use the clickers for the vote on the Neary Building Project if the vote is too close to call by a show of hands.
If that’s the case, voters on the losing side of a clicker vote may question the results and call for a headcount.
Plus, some voters have also publicly worried about the potential impact of a “secret ballot”. (And if voters who were worried about friends/neighbors’ reactions cast different votes on their clickers than they did by their show of hands, the outcome of that may cast further doubt about the accuracy of clickers.)
Here’s my look at what happened at the April 7th meeting, the history of adopting the clickers, and the plans for using them again in a few weeks.
Clicker Questions Raised at Annual Town Meeting
During the opening section of the April 7th Town Meeting, Town Clerk Jim Hegarty led voters through some test questions to practice use of the clickers. And Moderator Paul Cimino told voters that, to get them comfortable with their use, he might call for some routine votes to be done by clicker that night.
During discussion of Town Budgets, William Warren held the Municipal Technology Committee’s budget. He used the opportunity to ask about MTC’s involvement in vetting the clickers. He referred to them as “a very major technology change in the way that we vote in this town”. He followed:
we’re taking it on faith that they work. . . So I would like to understand why the technology committee, if it’s looking at the town’s technology, didn’t get involved in in doing some type of certification on these things. This is going to become a much larger point in our next meeting on May 10th.
MTC Chair Matt Probst responded that his committee had been involved:
I sat down with Mr Heggerty looked at the technology. I’ve reviewed read the manuals, looked into which Wi-Fi signals are being used in here, which one which channels can be are available, verified that many other towns are using these clickers, verified the security certifications that these are used for. . . These things are secure and municipal technology committee is in favor of it.
Warren had noted that he couldn’t find anything in MTC’s minutes over related to the clickers within the past year. Probst apologized if the minutes didn’t document the discussions.
The issue may be that the clicker research dates back further than Warren realized. MTC voted to support the proposed use back in September 2022, prior to the Town Meeting 2½ years ago in which voters approved the future use. No voters urged opposition at the time, but some asked questions or raised concerns prior to the vote. (Scroll down to “History” for more on that.)
After Probst’s answer, Warren continued to ask questions about the technology use (unrelated to the budget). Other residents also chimed in with questions or opinions.
Warren wanted to know how many clickers were issued so that could be compared to the results of the clicker tests. He noted that if the vote totals were either greater or far lower than the number of clickers issued that would indicate something was going wrong.
Hegarty appeared to misinterpret the point of the question, responding:
I’m not a conspiracy guy but we need to have the four people out there running through some kind of conspiracy . . . I don’t know what you’re chasing
Warren responded that he wasn’t intending to impute anything and his question was reasonable. He pointed out, “we tried to use these twice before last fall and they did not work”.
(Warren was referring to the test runs that failed at the start of the Special Town Meeting in September. In that instance, none of the clickers connected to the system. Hegarty solved the problem, but only after voters had begun handing clickers back to people collecting them. At that point, Cimino had decided it was best to proceed with using them during that meeting. To try to avoid issues for this spring, Hegarty arranged to have the vendor attend both this annual and the upcoming Special Town Meeting.)
Quipping that he’d been coming to Town Meetings, “more than many of people have been alive”, Jim Colleary opined that there was no perfect way to count the votes. He followed:
if you question the integrity of it then I suppose you could request the moderator to do a hand raise and then have the people come out and count
(Some voters tried unsuccessfully to do that later in the meeting. The Moderator dismissed that request since it didn’t come up immediately after the vote as required under Town Meeting rules.)1
After checking the count, Hegarty informed Warren that 324 clickers were currently issued, the same number as voters who had checked into the meeting. He also followed up on a question from Adam Phaneuf about whether clickers are “disabled” when voters leave. He clarified that when voters leave, their clickers are turned in and kept in a bin controlled by the Warden and Deputy Warden.
The hall voted to approve the MTC budget.
Problems During First Real Use of Clickers at Town Meeting
As I covered last week, Cimino called for voters to use their clickers to decide on a request for increasing the Police Department budget. The motion failed 135 to 153, with a total of 288 vote.
That’s 36 votes fewer than the number that had recently been reported as held by voters. While some voters may have abstained, there were voters who complained that the clickers didn’t show the “OK” that signals the vote was received.
Cimino chose to treat the vote as “locked” and move on to the next item, voting on the originally proposed budget. That vote resulted in a total of 258 votes. The following motions on employee benefits showed 242 and 255 for vote totals.
At that time, Cimino noted to Hegarty that they were getting questions about clickers not showing “OK”. Hegarty told the hall that there were only three reasons for that, they voted before the window opened, after it closed, or didn’t press the button.
Voters argued that wasn’t true. At that point, Cimino suggested doing a test while Hegarty stood next to someone who complained about their clicker not working.
While that was going on, Robert Reeder commented that he had watched his wife’s device and believed it had been unsuccessfully trying to connect to the system and get an answer. He suggested that the voting window may have been too short for the system to process the number of clickers trying to connect at the same time.
After some testing. Cimino told the hall that the vendor confirmed that Reeder was correct. He followed that if they used the clickers again, he would provide a longer voting window.
In looking back at the video from the meeting, during the approximately 20 second window given for voting on the amended police budget, the total number of the votes on the screen continually increased. That increase only stopped right before the YES and NO counts were displayed.
History of Adopting Town Meeting Clickers
The Town Meeting vote to adopt use of clickers was cast at the Special Town Meeting on October 13th, 2022. Voters approved the Moderator’s right to use them during future Town Meetings.
The STM 2022 Article (#8) amended the Town Code to add language specifying the Moderator’s authority to select methods of voting. The section added to the code lists states that methods:
may include, but not be limited to: a voice vote, a vote by voter card, a standing vote, a written ballot vote, or a vote by electronic technology.
The Warrant explained:
This Article defines the methods of voting that the Moderator may determine to use at Town Meeting, including by electronic technology; such as individual vote tabulators (“clickers”’) provided at the Town Meeting.
At the October 2022 meeting, Hegarty explained the challenges with counting close votes. He described not only the time taken, but issues with accuracy. He explained that two tellers are assigned to each count sections of the room and record the counts on paper:
we’ve still had instances where we’ve had in the past two years we’ve had three votes that have passed by one vote. And we have had several instances where I’ve had to call people up that have written the notations to ask them to explain what marks they made on the on the items. Were they part of the tally? Were they not? and honestly it’s a lot more difficult than you think to be counting at a busy Hall. Is this person in favor behind? Is their card up is it down? Are they moving around?
He investigated how other Towns use clickers and found one that he said was used by the U.S House of Representatives and 28 other towns in our state.
Cimino commented personally to tell the hall that he came around to supporting the idea after initially opposing it. “I said, ‘Why don’t we just get better tellers?'” While he still didn’t want to use them for “extremely routine” votes, but believed when counting was needed the clickers “would be invaluable”.
Voters Herb Kolk and Kelly Roney asked how voters could be confident that their votes were received and counted. Hegarty explained that after the signal from the vote was received a signal would be sent back to the clicker to show “OK” on the screen.
Probst commented to explain that the MTC took up the issue and sent Hegarty “a variety of detailed security questions”, all of which he addressed. He said the MTC then voted unanimously in favor of the proposal. 2
Tracey Navaroli provided her perspective as a teller, “it’s not always easy to know who’s got their hands up who’s sitting”. She was in favor of the “clear, definitive. . . yeah or a nay”.
Kelly Roney raised his concern that this would lead to voting akin to a secret ballot. Cimino responded that it was one of his initial concerns:
It’s not even essentially a secret ballot. It is a secret ballot. . .
So my intention, as long as I’m Moderator, is that it will be used sparingly, again, especially for votes that are too close to call
No one raised concerns of how a future Moderator with a different philosophy might use the option. (So far, that isn’t an issue since Cimino has continued to be elected and is again running unopposed in the next Town Election. Although, this Article was an instance where an alternate Moderator was temporarily in charge to avoid conflict of interest for Cimino.)
In response to a question, Hegarty noted that every town handles the clickers and votes differently. Some use the clickers for every vote, some have ballots printed up where voters mark them and put them in the box at the front.
The hall voted overwhelmingly in favor.
Prior to that vote, the method of voting wasn’t specified in the Town Code. However, there was language about the procedures that was standard in the Introduction section of each Town Meeting Warrant:
Voting is by hand vote and the Moderator declares the results of such votes. If seven or more registered voters immediately question the vote, so declared, the Moderator shall determine the results by a standing count of votes by the tellers. After the vote, as counted by the tellers, is presented to the Moderator and announced to the floor, any further motions for recount are out of order. Moreover, the Moderator may disallow the request for a count if he believes the voice was beyond a reasonable doubt.
If a law or by-law requires more than a simple majority for action by the Meeting, the Moderator may first determine whether the vote is unanimous. If the vote is not unanimous, the voters shall be counted by means of a standing vote
The updated introduction now states:
At the Moderator’s discretion, voting may be via electronic devices for some or all of the articles. Instructions and procedures will be made available for all voters attending Town Meeting. If electronic voting is not employed, voting is by hand vote and the Moderator declares the result of such votes. If seven or more voters immediately question the declared result, the Moderator shall determine the result by a standing count of votes by the Tellers. After the vote counted by the Tellers is presented to the Moderator and announced to the floor, any further motions for recount are out of order.
The purchase of clickers was paid for using the Town’s ARPA funds, approved by the Select Board. They became available for use and were introduced to voters at the 2024 Annual Town Meeting. But during that meeting, no vote was close enough to require their use.
Planned Use at the Special Town Meeting
April 7th wasn’t the first time Warren raised concerns about using clickers at Town Meeting. At the Select Board’s April 1st meeting, Hegarty and Cimino discussed their plans and preparation for the Special Town Meeting to be held on May 10th, 9:00 am at Algonquin Regional High School.
During the discussion, Hegarty spoke about the clickers. He explained that there will be two sets of clickers with different colored lanyards. Which ones you receive will depend on whether you will be voting in the auditorium (where parents will be allowed to sit with their children) or the gymnasium. (That’s the same way it was handled on April 7th. When voters switched rooms, they had to turn in their original clickers to receive ones that would work in the new location.)
Hegarty explained that the setup is prevent someone who is standing in the hallway from casting a vote that could be picked up on by both receivers. Each receiver will be set to only engage with the appropriate set of clickers.
During the discussion, Warren raised his worry that the clickers might be used for a “Secret Ballot” on the Neary Building Project without the Town having ever voted to change to that method of voting. (No one clarified that the Town had voted to leave it to the Moderator’s discretion.)
Cimino responded that he had no intent to use them that way. He would start out by calling for a vote by hand.
- Under Town Meeting rules (explained in the Warrant and referred to during the opening of the meeting), the Moderator must recount the vote “If seven or more voters immediately question the declared result”. In this case, at least one voter raised a concern but seven members didn’t “rise” to call for a recount. By the time clicker issues had been verified, enough time passed that Cimino opined it would have been unfair to some voters who left.
- That vote was in their September 20, 2022 meeting.
