WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town's Charter Review Committee last week took a deep dive into several of the local government reforms that have percolated through committee discussions over the last year without deciding what, if any, recommendations to make on any of the changes.

 

No clear consensus emerged among the committee members on two issues that are less about the charter, the foundational document of town government, and more about the mechanics of the annual town meeting.

 

As part of its charter conversation, the committee explored the question of whether the town should consider altering the meeting format from an open meeting, where all registered voters can attend and vote, to a representational model, where voters elect individuals, usually by ward or precinct, to consider items like the town budget and bylaw amendments.

 

No groundswell of support among committee members was apparent at its March 2 meeting for the idea of adopting a representative town meeting model.

 

But the panel's examination of the meeting writ large opened the door to other tweaks, like utilizing electronic voting and breaking the meeting up into two annual meetings in order to avoid lengthy sessions like last spring's.

 

On both those non-charter questions, committee members made arguments for and against.

 

Anne Skinner, who researched the idea of using electronic voting systems, or clickers, said there are practical concerns with the systems, like the possibility that some voters might suspect the system has been "hacked."

 

She argued that the current system, where votes on narrow issues are decided by "standing votes" where meeting members raise colored cardboard cards to indicate "yay" or "nay," voters can have more assurance that the official vote total accurately reflects voter preferences.

 

"You can look around the room on a standing vote, and if people say, 'Only 20 people voted,' and you know perfectly well that you saw 50 or 60 people standing … ," Skinner said.

 

Joe Bergeron said he has seen electronic voting implemented where meeting attendees were given "clickers" with randomized serial numbers and could access an online database that shows what vote was recorded in the system for that clicker in each issue where the system is used.

 

"That's technologically possible," Bergeron said. "Whether we choose to use devices with all of that happening, I think that's a separate question."

 

The Select Board, which plans to ask May's town meeting whether it wants the town to offer the electronic voting option at future town meetings, plans to have a demonstration of the system at one of its Monday night meetings, said Andrew Hogeland, who co-chairs the Charter Review Committee.

 

Among the unknowns: Whether the voting systems, including that described by Bergeron, create public records of who had each clicker and how that person voted.

 

Proponents of electronic voting have argued that the clickers might allow meeting members to cast their vote without fear of being intimidated for taking unpopular sides on a given issue. If it turned out that the the voting data is captured at the individual level and that data is a public record, the conversation could shift.

 

The current town meeting rules allow for secret ballots, but the process is time-consuming and rarely used.

 

Committee member Jeff Strait said he was drawn to electronic voting because it allows for, potentially, more accuracy in vote tabulation.

 

"When you have close votes, I worry that it would be very easy to be off by five or 10 votes, simply because you're counting people who are tired of holding their hand up or they're removing around," Strait said. "It's just very difficult. It's not accurate, in my opinion."

 

Hogeland added to Strait's argument.

 

"I think the water line vote from some years ago was 16 people out of over a thousand," he said. "That's an easy number of people to miss. I think the vote to change the Planning Board from appointed to elected passed by six votes. So errors in hand counting are an issue."

 

Skinner argued that town meeting is the town's legislative body and while clickers may add efficiency, they would take away from the current ability to look around the room and know where your fellow residents stand, literally, on issues.

 

"Voting in Congress is electronic, but the name of the person voting is known," Skinner said. "There is no secret ballot in that legislature."

 

The committee appeared to be split on the question of splitting the meeting into two separate gatherings.

 

Former town clerk Mary Kennedy did the panel's research on that topic and reported that the two annual meetings format was more common in the eastern part of the state and often, by design, formatted to have a community's budget decided at the spring annual town meeting and zoning bylaws and items raised by citizen's petition decided at a fall meeting.

 

"The reason I think we're looking at this is because of the length of the meeting, specifically last year," Kennedy said. "And oftentimes the warrant is initially non-controversial when you're putting it together, and then one article starts drawing major community interest, especially as the meeting gets closer — usually a zoning article or citizen petition starts getting hot. This is what determines the length of an annual town meeting."

 

Kennedy said the annual town meeting, in her experience, can typically take two hours or less. She suggested that meetings like 2020's and 2021's focused on regulations for cannabis production and 2022's with a number of zoning bylaw amendments were, perhaps, outliers.

 

Jeffrey Johnson pushed back on that idea and suggested that the length of the meeting can be correlated with turnout — both tied to hot-button issues — and that the goal of town officials should be to encourage turnout and, hence, lengthier meetings.

 

"Some of the hardest decisions are made at the end of the meeting," Johnson said. "How long, clinically, mentally, can you stay focused? There are studies on this. … Maybe we can have a time frame so if we get it done [in a specified period of time], great, and if not, we have to reschedule."

 

Bergeron argued that the way to address the length of the time it takes to conduct the town's business is to do as much as possible to educate voters on the "hot button" issues prior to the meeting — a path already being followed by the Planning Board as it prepares to put several zoning bylaw amendments on the 2023 annual town meeting warrant.

 

"We want to increase participation and make it easier for people for whom getting to town meeting is difficult — either because of a work schedule or family at home or something along those lines," Bergeron said. "My perspective on it is if we create two meetings per year, I don't know if that addresses that issue. It might exacerbate it a bit

 

"I think exploring the ways to do the informational meeting or encourage participation in meetings leading up to town meeting might be a better tool for decreasing the overall length of town meeting than just doubling the number of meetings we have."