Town Meeting due for high-tech upgrade, some say

So Sager, a Wayland High School senior, started the group Improve Wayland Democracy, and researched ways to streamline Town Meeting votes and ensure greater ballot secrecy, so citizens would be more likely to participate and unafraid to vote their conscience.

Sager’s group recently sponsored a mock Town Meeting, with the 21 participants using electronic keypads to cast votes. The high school project won approval again, but this time there was no need for checkers to count, by a show of hands, how many people had sided for or against it. The results were posted on a screen for all to see within 25 seconds.

The vote didn’t mean anything, of course, but it did serve as a demonstration of what might be the future of Town Meetings in Wayland, Sager said.

“Why is Town Meeting so unbearable nowadays?’’ asked Sager, who served as moderator for the Feb. 4 test run. “We’re a 21st-century society; we don’t need to be wasting time at Town Meeting every year.’’

Officials urge careful deliberation over any major changes to Town Meeting, but Sager’s group is not alone in studying ways to improve the process in Wayland.

A committee has been formed by the Board of Selectmen to look into making the town’s legislative session more efficient and voter-friendly. The warrant for this spring’s Town Meeting has three articles that could dramatically change how Wayland conducts its business.

And a former selectman, Alan Reiss, has been researching ways to conduct Town Meeting votes electronically.

Reiss said that saving time and preserving direct democracy might not be the only benefits if electronic voting is adopted.

Last fall’s meeting, when the Town Center article required three time-consuming votes over two nights before winning final approval, was rife with “peer pressure and intimidation,’’ Reiss said, and he is convinced that switching to an electronic secret vote would alleviate the situation.

“The nature of the system would protect those who are intimidated,’’ he said, adding that contentious Town Meeting votes aren’t going to disappear, and choosing a confidential voting method might result in more people attending Town Meeting. “At the end of the day, all this is doing is replacing the method of counting votes.’’

While she was “very surprised’’ to discover that the Town Meeting voting process has been largely unchanged for 300 years, Sager said, her proposed solution would maintain the spirit of direct democracy that Wayland treasures.

“We really want the one-person, one-vote tradition we’ve had for hundreds of years,’’ she said.

Reiss, in his effort to build support for changing the system in Wayland, created a website (www.electronicvoting.info) to promote the cause and host his research on the various ways Town Meeting votes could be conducted. A video of the recent demonstration, Reiss said, was going to be posted as an example of how the process would be substantially faster with the new technology.

An electronic voting initiative is one proposal going before Town Meeting in May. There is also a proposal to split Town Meeting into two sessions, one for debate and one for voting, an arrangement commonly called the “Australian ballot.’’

There is also a proposal for a Town Meeting debate website that would allow residents to comment on warrant articles.

“I think there certainly needs to be an improvement in the process,’’ said Selectman Joe Nolan, the board’s chairman. He said the controversial and inefficient Town Meeting in November helped prompt the creation of the committee to examine new ways of running the sessions.

The committee, Nolan said, will collect information on the warrant articles and prepare recommendations for the Board of Selectmen on whether to support any changes to the system. But with so little time before the spring Town Meeting, he said, the committee’s suggestions might have to wait until the fall.

Whether this spring or in the fall, Nolan said, no changes should be made without careful consideration.

“These Town Meeting proposals change a 300-year-old tradition. We need to tread lightly in changing the whole process,’’ he said.

Selectwoman Susan Pope, who attended Thursday’s demonstration, also advised care in making any changes. She said last fall’s confusion was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and the cost of implementing and maintaining a new voting system, as well as concerns over which town official would be in charge of the voting equipment, need to be taken into consideration.

“Changes will be made, but let’s not rush into it,’’ Pope said.