Citizen Petition in Ayer, MA

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. Board members were negative in their response.

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Town Meeting Materials

If anyone is interested, you can find the citizen petition materials on the Annual Town Meeting 2025 web page (bottom). Below are the flyers shared before the meeting. Here is the Power Point presentation from Town Meeting floor. There is no follow-up planned for the citizen petition.

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.

Additional Materials

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 better than having to use resident tellers to count cards (and not being able to follow their approach). This can also encourage a more thoughtful Town Meeting process and move away from a herd voting approach on Town Meeting floor.

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