As we make our way through the 2013 annual town meeting season, we are reminded of how precious our brand of local democracy is. In other parts of the country, town meetings are unheard of.
In most other states, if they are involved in local issues at all, people might roll out for a heated public meeting on a hot button issue, but by and large, local government decisions are made by county boards and city councils that act much like mini legislatures in a voter vacuum; complete with their own political alliances, agendas, and lobbyists.
Traditional New England town meetings are actually democracy on the hoof during which a town convenes its own legislature and decides its own interests.
This week we received a letter from former Bristol Selectman Craig Elliott in which he opined the thing for Bristol to do is to do away with the traditional town meeting in favor of a secret ballot referendum. Some local towns, notably Wiscasset, Waldoboro and Jefferson have already done so.
There are reasonable arguments for and against the idea.
The arguments for are obviously the ease and relative peace of the ballot; the freedom to express one’s own opinion in the safety of the voting booth, and the fact that a day-long polling can usually and does often attract more participants than the traditional town meeting. That’s all to the good.
However, we think something is lost by doing away with the open town meeting where you actually have to talk to your neighbors; where questions can be asked, issues addressed and articles amended or tabled on the spot.
There is a lot to be said about discussing a question before deciding upon it.
Proponents of the secret ballot voting can cite increased accessibility due to longer polling hours and eliminating the intimidation factor for holding or expressing a potentially unpopular opinion.
There is something to those arguments, and something to the argument that town meetings are open to all who care to attend and anyone in attendance can call for a secret ballot vote on any one issue.
Long term secret ballot proponents may win out as the facts on the ground are that, year-by-year, the people who have been making our local governments go, the Wendy Piehs, Jim Hiltons and Chad Hannas, get a little longer in the tooth and there seemingly is no influx of younger talent coming in, willing to take on their mantle.
Still, while we have it, we enjoy the process – from suggestion, to petition, to budget, to warrant article, to vote – in all its messy glory.
