Electronic Voting was brought into Wayland to improve its town meeting. The technology solves three of the most important problems which plague modern day New England open town meeting.
1. Votes need to be counted fast. All votes take no more than 60 seconds. The time consuming, energy draining, frustrating standing counted vote has been eliminated with electronic voting.
2. Votes need to be counted accurately. No matter where you sit, whether it be on the front row or out in the bleachers; your vote is accurately and equally counted.
3. Votes need to be counted privately. Real democracy demands the secret ballot. Without this technology, private voting is not practical for town meeting. Open voting is subject to outside voter influences before, during or after the fact.
With this technology we can have all three. Fast, accurate and private voting. All together. All at the same time. We do not have to tradeoff privacy for expediency. No more. We do not have to suffer the human frailties of measuring sight or sound. Shouting at a distance or raising hands or holding colored cards where the moderator has to use his senses to make the best judgement. Human judgement is subject to human error. Lastly, we do not have to suffer the standing counted vote where we divide the audience to stand Yea or Nay to be counted for many minutes by roaming teller pairs with clipboards and pens while we are publically counted in place. Zoning and borrowing articles require a 2/3rd margin. Precision is the difference between spending or NOT spending millions of dollars. Precision is the difference between making a zoning change to affect the town forever - or NOT making that change. Precision is the name of the game in a fair and meaningful town meeting.
If you want to count votes, use a computer - that's what electronic voting does.
When we vote without privacy we may be watched by employers, friends, relatives, neighbors, town employees, social groups; all of whom may want their agenda to pass and may want your agenda to be theirs.
No more. The secret ballot with speed and accuracy has now taken New England Town Meeting into the 21st century.
This site is devoted to information, education and the spreading of this technology. And it is spreading!