AUBURN — City Clerk Sue Clements-Dallaire hopes counting this June’s school budget referendum with the city’s voting machines will yield a quicker, more decisive result.
City councilors have scheduled a public hearing March 4 on where voters will go to cast their school budget ballots and how those ballots will be counted. Clements-Dallaire said the plan is to schedule the vote for June 11 at Auburn Hall.
Auburn’s voting volunteers hand-counted the school referendum ballot last spring. When the night ended, there was an apparent tie in the unofficial count. The official count the next morning turned up four more ballots in favor of approving the school budget.
“Because it was so close, people wanted a recount,” she said. “We did the recount, and the official numbers added up, but it was a difficult result.”
Using the voting machines will cost $1,175 more, she said. Special machine-readable ballots must be printed, and at least two voting machines must be programmed to read those ballots.
Clements-Dallaire said the city looks to save at least $4,000 by having only one polling place for the election. She would have to hire fewer election judges to monitor the vote and fewer supplies.
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