Citizen Petition in Ayer, MA

Electronic Voting Devices – Citizen Petition at Ayer Annual Town Meeting

On April 28, 2025, Ayer Town Meeting voted 68-23 in favor of a citizen petition, Electronic Voting Devices at Annual Town Meeting and Special Town Meeting. These are also known as Town Meeting clickers. On Sept. 16, 2025, this was discussed at a Select Board meeting and there has been no action. If anyone is interested, you can find the citizen petition materials on the Annual Town Meeting 2025 web page (bottom).

More than 80 communities in Massachusetts now let residents use electronic voting devices at Town Meeting. When you look at the towns immediately around us, Shirley and Ayer are the only towns that have not started using electronic voting devices yet.
Click to enlarge.
Click to enlarge.

Electronic Voting Devices in Use at Lunenburg Town Meeting

This is an example of the results screen, which shows how many people voted yes, no or abstained. These results are instant and you can see for yourself. The experience of voting is more comfortable. You have that transparency, something to show the actual count. It is much better than having to use tellers to count hands (and not being able to follow their systems of counting).

Watch: see the electronic voting devices count at Lunenburg MA Annual Town Meeting, May 2022, See 6 min and 21 min.