Last night over 140 townspeople gathered at the Fletcher Elementary School to debate and decide whether we would retain our traditional Town Meeting or move to Australian ballot voting.  The bottom-line result: we opted by about a 2:1 margin for the status quo.

There were actually two meetings.  One was hosted by the School Board and the other by the Select Board.  We had a total of 5 articles at stake, asking if we should use Australian ballot for:

• School budgets: defeated by secret ballot, 95-47
• School officers: defeated by secret ballot, 89-43
• Town budgets: defeated by voice vote
• Town officers: defeated by voice vote
• Other public questions: defeated by voice vote

I'm not going to speculate as to the motivations for bringing this question to the town.  I will note, however, that the petitioners' remarks last night and during this whole debate have tended to focus on the small number of folks showing up to vote on the school budget, which is a fair enough point.

Indeed, we had 96 people attend Town Meeting this year, but only 43 stayed for the school issues.  Out of 863 registered voters.  So last night's attendance was significantly higher than usual–about 50% more than for town business and over 3 times as many for the school meeting.

An interesting attendence stat from the Secretary of State (based on 2008 info):

Towns that held both traditional town meeting and Australian ballot voting:

• 10.4% turnout – traditional meeting
• 47.8% turnout – Australian ballot
• 13.6% – Absentee ballot

Towns that held only a traditional town meeting:

• 21.1% turnout 

Meeting attendance is low in general, but on average twice as many people go if that's where business is done.  Of course more people can vote by ballot because it really just takes a few minutes to drop by a polling place or do it absentee, so the numbers unsurprisingly are much, much higher.

I am all for expanding participation.  Democracy depends on as much active engagement as possible.  Yet I don't think 100 percent or 50 percent or any percentage really is a magic number for democracy to function–something above zero strikes me as fine so long as people are exercising their franchise as they see fit, whether voting or opting not to vote, and not unconstitutionally being prevented from doing so (e.g., Jim Crow, voter ID laws, etc).

As many pedants love to point out, we do not live in a democracy per se, but a republic wherein we have democratic processes to make certain decisions, like who will represent us in the Legislative branch.  So we never vote on all questions that impact us, but rather have pre-defined times when we can weigh in on the job our proxies are doing and on particularly important issues.

That said, when you get down to smaller levels of self-government, like towns, we do have the opportunity to have more direct democracy.  That can be unwieldy in urban places like Burlington, but not so in little, rural Fletcher.

There's a great deal of power in gathering to debate issues and then voting on them.  For instance, merely voting a presented budget up or down may seem like you're getting your say, but without publicly discussing each line item, offering changes, and stating your opinion openly, it's not clear why voters–individually or in aggregate–voted in a particular way, nor have you actually arrived at a real consensus.  Anybody can introduce any business for action.  Your voice is amplified when you show up and interact with your community.

As Henry David Thoreau observed, the obligation of voting “never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail.”  

Contrast that with last night's gathering where no speaker was feebly expressing desire, but literally standing up for what they believed.  Even those who did not stand up to speak expressed their interest by being physically present.

That's perhaps why Thoreau's friend Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “in a town-meeting, the great secret of political science was uncovered, and the problem solved, how to give every individual his fair weight in the government.”

Beyond every individual having a say, I'd submit that every individual will be more informed with discussion beyond what's printed in the annual report.  If turnout at meetings is lower with Australian ballot, we're merely increasing participation for participation's sake while reducing how informed the participants are overall.  Not only that, but showing up in person is always more effective than any more removed action, whether it be writing a letter or casting a ballot, so it provides for better accountability and transparency in government.

While the meeting was generally civil, there was one thing that bothered me: a number of people told us that we had taken their right to vote away.  I'm not unsympathetic to their personal situations vis Meeting and can appreciate the passion of the moment, but I cannot brook such an incendiary charge.

There most certainly is hardship involved with attending meetings as opposed to dropping your ballot in a box, yet there is no legal bar to your exercise of voting rights with Town Meeting.  This is unlike the disenfrachisement we saw in the Old South, or the obstacles now being erected in Tea Party states like Wisconsin.

It was observed that some people might have to take vacation time to go to meeting.  It was also observed that members of the Board regularly take unpaid time off or vacation time to attend, so why can't everybody else who feels it's important to take part in Town business?

Is your say critical?  Absolutely.  So it's a good thing that the date of Town Meeting is as predictable as any other election, and is publicly warned well in advance so you can plan ahead.  It's also a good thing that it is a state holiday and employers are required by law to at least give you the day off unpaid–again, planning ahead can most likely mitigate the impact of losing some work time.

I'm appreciate the problems, being someone who could not attend for many years, but really it's about making choices.  If this is something so important to you, I would expect you to prioritize using the means available rather than pushing everybody else to change to meet your needs.

No mechanism will be perfect, but we are trying to accomodate people as much as possible whilst maintaining a vital democratic process to govern our town.  A town, mind you, that's small enough for your voice to have more impact any day in between elections than it does in Montpelier or DC, even if you don't vote or attend meeting.

As I've observed in various fora, I find it interesting that a town can opt to get rid of the annual meeting, but must do it by holding a meeting.  And to undo the changes?  Hold another meeting.

I have to ask why, and I wonder if that's because making an alteration to self-governance–and dealing with other fundamental questions–requires some great deliberation and really more skin in the game than a mere vote.  Not unlike holding conventions to change constitutions.

Almost as if to prove the point, more people came last night than usual because something unusual was at stake.  In fact, the difference was pretty much equal to the number of people voting for the Australian ballot.  So despite protestations that they cannot attend meetings known well in advance, they somehow were able to muster the effort to show up on much shorter notice.

Frankly, I would've been more inclined to accept the not entirely unreasonable opinions of the Australian ballot petitioners if there had been some glaring problem with meeting outcomes, lack of responsiveness by our elected officials on issues or whatever.  Some data showing that Meeting caused too much hardship and a vast majority of Fletcherites felt that they had absolutely no say in how things operate would've given me much more pause.

They possibly made a tactical error in not polling the community first.  It had been discussed online, and we certainly have the mechanism with a monthly newsletter sent to everybody, online channels, and plenty of time before the next meeting (this also could've been a question added to the annual agenda).  Apparently 70+ people signed the petition in a few days, while the pro-ballot folks could only muster about 40 votes at Meeting. 

I signed one of the petitions (I admit to not noticing there were two separate ones) because I had every intention of allowing this question to be debated even though I disagreed with the objective.  I didn't fear debate, even if I was invested in a particular result. All this leads me to believe the petitioners misjudged how universal their concerns were and failed to realize that even those of us who didn't support their goals supported having their voices heard because we trust the process.

Our grand juror, who was elected at last year's Town Meeting, stood to make that important point: this is all about trust.  Trust your neighbors who go to Meeting–they're going to vote their conscience and with the community in mind.  Trust your town officals–they're going to do right by the Town.  Trust your school board members–they're spending our money wisely and frugally while protecting our kids.  

They all live here, they all stop by the General Store for milk, they all pay taxes to keep our roads maintained and whatnot.  They all want this to be a good place for us to live.  And don't forget to become more involved during the rest of the year–go to the regular, public, warned budget meetings before Town Meeting, for example–to help these people who have stepped up for their community.

Most importantly, remember that democracy is alive and well in Fletcher.

ntodd