Secretary of State office details election logistics if governor's school-board plan moves forward

At a joint meeting of the Government Operations & Military Affairs committees, Lauren Hayward of the Secretary of State's Office outlined the election-administration work the office says is necessary if the governor's proposal to create statewide school-board districts goes forward.

Hayward told members the most urgent items are deciding district lines and the number and apportionment of wards inside each district so the office can prepare ballots and run an election if the first contest is held on the general-election ballot in November 2026. "If the proposal moves forward, we need to know how to run this election. So that's why it's urgent," Hayward said.

The secretary of state’s memo and Hayward’s presentation flagged several technical and timetable requirements: mapping and warding work in 2025, integration of new races into the state's election-management software, petition and filing deadlines for candidates, and ballot-printing and mail deadlines. Hayward said the administration's initial proposal calls for five statewide districts but that number could change; the office's principal operational need is to know the district count and how wards will be apportioned inside each district.

Hayward outlined specific operational items the office would need to address if elections move to November 2026: wards should be proportionate within a district, the office would include school-board races on the general-election ballot and manage them as part of the state's universal vote-by-mail system, and petition windows and signature requirements must be set early so ballots can be prepared. "We would need the petitions... early August at the very latest," Hayward said, adding that the office needs time to prepare ballots and mail them 45 days before the election.

The office recommended a 100-signature petition threshold for candidates, the same numeric floor used for some state races, though Hayward said timing and exact counts are still under consideration. She also recommended establishing who would serve as the school-district clerk (one operational idea: the town clerk for the largest municipality in a district), and said that the petition filing process should allow petitions to be submitted to the school-district clerk or any town clerk in a candidate’s ward.

Hayward described other technical needs: new mapping software and vendor work to create the races in the election system, modifications to ballot production workflows, and election-night reporting adjustments so vote totals map correctly to new wards and districts. On funding, Hayward said the office would seek a general-fund appropriation to cover costs and that federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds are largely committed. "It will have cost. It would absolutely will have cost," she said.

Legislators raised practical and policy concerns during the discussion. Several members worried voter confusion could result if new school-board wards do not align with existing senate or house districts, and some expressed concern about moving school-board elections from March town-meeting timing to the November general election. "This would totally change the point of a lot of town meetings to move these school based education decisions out of town meeting day," one legislator said, urging the committees to consider the effect on local budgeting and public engagement.

Hayward and members also discussed a possible alternative timeline. If the legislature delays implementation so the first statewide school-board elections occur in 2028 rather than 2026, the secretary of state's office would not need to make the immediate technical changes in 2025; Hayward warned, however, that delaying would carry budgetary and scheduling consequences.

Committee members asked about frequency of reapportionment; Hayward recommended reapportionment every 10 years using census data, with the reapportionment process timed to follow legislative reapportionment. She also said the administration's proposal envisions nonpartisan school-board races, and that the secretary of state's office would include those races in candidate voter guides and voter-education work for the general election.

The office emphasized that many policy decisions remain outside its remit and that some items — notably the number of districts and the role and powers of local advisory councils — must be decided by the education-policy committees before election-administration details can be finalized. Hayward said the Secretary of State's Office can prepare draft statutory language about procedural elements once those policy choices are set.

No formal vote or committee action was taken during the briefing; the session was presented as informational and participants discussed next steps for drafting language and coordinating with education committees.