Three towns – Rumford, Mexico and Peru – this month scuttled traditional town meeting votes for their municipal budgets. Now, questions of dollars and cents in those towns will be decided through the other bastion of American Democracy: the ballot box.

“It’s the wave of the future,” said Peru selectman Bill Hine about the change. It’s also a wave to the past, a mournful twisting of the wrist and hand toward a shrinking vision of democratic idealism.

Hine said referendums would open the town’s business to more people, by providing the chance to vote all day rather than cram into an auditorium at an appointed time. The opportunity to vote absentee also adds flexibility, he added. Supporters in Rumford and Mexico felt likewise, as attendance at town meeting dwindled.

Town meetings, the oft-described purest form of democracy, has for many towns become the antithesis of proper governance, and facilitated decidedly anti-democratic phenomena.

“If the road commissioner wants to increase his budget, and 40 people show up to the meeting, [the road commissioner] only needs 20 people,” said Hine, by way of example. This situation ends with few making decisions for all, which is more Loyalist than Patriotic by any measure.

And now political candidates hold “town meetings” – especially every fourth year in New Hampshire – as symbols of dedication to democratic principles and eagerness to mingle with common voters: Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech” turned into yet another “image moment” for politicians.

In short, town meetings aren’t what they used to be. Trudging out on a muddy March – or sunny June – morning, engaging in passionate civic debate, and having the finest kind of potluck before adjourning is an ideal wilting in many towns under the heat created by contemporary governance and changing communities.

The reasons for abandoning town meeting votes are sensible, but shouldn’t signal their overall demise. Instead, town meetings are simply showing their age, and should be modernized.

Frank Bryan, author of “Real Democracy: the New England Town Meeting and How It Works,” found town meeting attendance declines largely because of population increases. Eighteen Maine towns that ceased town meetings in the 1960s and 1970s saw average population increases of 14.7 percent, according to the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy.

Susan Clark, co-author with Bryan of “All Those In Favor: Rediscovering the Secrets of Town Meeting and Community,” makes several common sense proposals to improve town meetings, such as: paid time off for town meetings, like jury duty; on-site child care; emphasis on the key issues of the meeting, rather than dry budget figures, and incorporation of ceremonies or awards during the meeting.

Parting with town meeting votes is sweet sorrow, surely, but for some towns it’s for the best. For those wishing to keep them, we suggest creativity in adapting the tradition to the 21 century.

Scholars may believe New England’s unique form of governance is timeless, but that shouldn’t prevent it from changing with the times.