Thursday, 4:30 PM
Town officials detail plan for casino vote
By Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff
and Christine Wallgren, Globe Correspondent
MIDDLEBOROUGH -- To make sure Saturday's Town Meeting vote on a proposed casino agreement goes forward as planned, town officials sent a letter today to the Secretary of State with reassurances that the votes will be counted accurately.
Eileen Gates, Middleborough town clerk, said the her assurances seemed to be accepted by Michelle K. Tassinari, legal counsel of the Secretary of State's election division.
"I talked to Michelle and she said it was fine," Gates said at about 2:30 p.m. today, just before the 3 p.m. deadline set by Secretary of State William F. Galvin to meet all his concerns.
As many as 10,000 of the town’s 15,000 registered voters are expected to attend the meeting, which will be held on the athletic fields at Middleborough High School. According to the Town Clerk’s office, 600 new voters have registered in just the last couple weeks.
The Town Meeting will vote on a proposed deal under which the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe would pay the town at least $11 million a year to host the $1 billion resort casino. The 45-page agreement was released to the public on Monday.
In the letter, town officials say that registration will start at 8 a.m., three hours before the meeting starts, and that 30 election workers will run six check-in stations as voters arrive.
As they check in by precinct, voters will be given a paper ballot with "yes" on one half and "no" on the other. Moderator James Thomas plans to call for a secret ballot, so voters will place the half that indicates their vote in a ballot box and place the discarded half in another box. That second box will be closely guarded so discarded papers are not taken out and used again. There will be 30 ballot boxes and 30 corresponding disposal boxes.
Once collected, the ballots will be taken inside and counted by election workers. Thomas has said a pro-casino representative and an anti-casino representative will be allowed to witness the count, which could take a few hours.
Galvin said earlier today that the check-in process is fine, but said he remains concerned about the how the vote is to be conducted and how the votes are to be tabulated.
Galvin said the paper ballots must be counted in public. He said he has urged town officials to quickly finalize how the vote will be conducted and to publish the plan on the Internet and on paper for distribution well before Saturday.
Gates said the town plans to have the six ballot boxes carried from the athletic field into the gymnasium, where the ballots will be counted by one election official, then checked by another. She said the counting process will unfold in front of anyone who wants to watch from the gymnasium bleacher seats. Police will be on hand for security, she said.
About 750 to 800 chairs will be supplied by the town, along with an overhead canopy, for the section designated for the handicapped.
"We are asking others to bring their own chair," Marsha Brunelle, chairwoman of the Middleborough Board of Selectmen, wrote to Tassinari. "Providing seating for 15,000 registered voters is entirely cost prohibitive."
Roger Brunelle, Marsha Brunelle's husband who is the town's technology director, has overseen a committee organizing the town meeting. He has estimated the cost could run as high as $124,000.
"This is the largest town meeting in the history of this state," Roger Brunelle told selectmen at a meeting on the casino Monday night. "If you pull it off, it will be something to be proud of."
