MEXICO – Still at odds with signers of a petition asking for secret ballot votes at town meetings, selectmen voted Wednesday to get a legal opinion from the Maine Municipal Association.
The document was presented on Election Day, Nov. 8, in hopes there would be an immediate town meeting to adopt the change from voting by a show of hands. However, Town Manager John Madigan and selectmen explained several times that night that the petition wording prevented that.
At their Nov. 30 meeting, selectmen had agreed to research the pros and cons of secret balloting by asking towns that vote that way.
Members of the Mexico Taxpayers Association, led by Monique Aniel, a former Mexico selectman, said Wednesday night that they are equally flummoxed.
“It dumbfounds me,” Aniel said Friday afternoon. “I never expected to get any problem.”
In bold print, the document states, “Petition to allow the voting on town budget by secret ballot rather than by current show of hands.”
Underneath, is a list of statements, which town officials say are opinions about why people were signing the document.
“We, the following citizens of the Town of Mexico, Maine, are signing this petition in order to obtain the ability to vote on the municipal budget by secret ballot,” the document states.
Town meetings
It also says town meetings would still be held, and warrant articles discussed, but voting would take place the following day “in the privacy of the polling booth.”
Aniel stated that she and other petitioners involved are only trying to increase town meeting participation and improve the democratic process.
She said Wednesday night that they have asked repeatedly to be put on the agenda, only to be rebuffed.
But that night, Chairwoman Barbara Laramee, who missed the Nov. 30 meeting, said she told Aniel and two others that the topic would be taken up under public discussion. It would not be a separate agenda item.
“It was taken under advisement, and we will get back to you with what we learned. We have not made any decision, whether for or against,” she said.
“The purpose of this petition is not whether you agree or not. The law says, it has to be put on the ballot,” Aniel argued.
Voting format
Madigan said, in several different ways, that in order to invoke a special town meeting, the petition had to be worded in the form of a ballot question.
“You didn’t present it in the form that would mandate that from the selectmen,” he said.
“Every town meeting article is specific. What you did, isn’t specific. It doesn’t specify, Shall the town vote to…’ You didn’t put anything in specific voting format. That’s what you’re not getting,” Madigan said.
He then added, “We’re answering the question in several different ways, and you aren’t getting it, because you don’t want to.”
“If this isn’t specific, I may have to re-study English,” Aniel responded.
Laramee said the board has until June to gather information about the secret ballot process and decide then if it should go before voters.
Aniel and others argued otherwise to no avail.
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