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Town meeting adopts routine use of electronic clickers after heated debate
Summary
After public testimony and an unsuccessful amendment to split the meeting as a trial, Concord Annual Town Meeting voted to adopt a rule making electronic clickers the routine method for counted votes at town meeting. Opponents cited auditability and transparency concerns; supporters emphasized privacy and inclusion.
The Concord Annual Town Meeting voted to adopt a rule to use electronic voting clickers routinely for counted votes on warrant motions, the moderator declared after a contested floor debate.
The preliminary motion, presented as a procedural rule, was recommended by the town meeting study committee earlier in the evening. Eric Moore, chair of that committee, told voters the committee favored remote participation and private clicker voting because of privacy concerns experienced by participants, and described the night's use of the devices as an experiment: "the privacy benefit ... was a real material concern for us in terms of favoring a private vote," he said.
Opponents argued the devices remove important paper-audit checks. Abraham Fischer, a longtime town head teller, told the meeting, "Clickers are not auditable," asserting the longstanding teller system provides independent double checks and that electronic results lack an independent way to verify close outcomes. Several other speakers echoed concerns about security and the representativeness of the study committee's survey.
The moderator explained the town had rented the equipment for the meeting and disclosed the rental cost of $15,400 for this year's meeting. Town staff demonstrated the clickers and ran test votes earlier in the evening; officials said the receiver was operated in airplane mode and that clicker numbers were randomly assigned and not linked to voters.
An amendment proposed by David Allen to split the meeting into two halves (first half using clickers, second half using paper slips) and to conduct a post-meeting random-sample survey failed in a paper ballot vote. After further debate the assembly voted to adopt the rule to use clickers routinely. The moderator noted that some procedural calls (for example, calls to end debate) would continue to use paper voting slips.
The vote changes the town's process for counted votes going forward; further questions about a permanent procurement decision will be addressed in the future by the IT department and town management. The meeting also retained raised paper slips for certain procedural actions.
