This story by Aaron Calvin was first published in the News & Citizen on Jan. 9
The Hyde Park Selectboard met recently to affirm its own legitimacy after discovering a three-decades-old error in how the town has conducted elections on Town Meeting Day.
The error surfaced when the Lanpher Memorial Library board of trustees requested to have its officer elections included on the Australian ballot, or poll vote, that Hyde Park has long used to elect some but not all of their officers at March Town Meeting Day.
After consulting the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, town clerk Kim Moulton subsequently discovered that a voter-approved article from the 1994 annual meeting moving some Hyde Park officer elections — including the selectboard members and listers — to Australian ballot did so in violation of state law.
Other positions such as town clerk, treasurer and moderator continued to be elected by voice vote, in an apparent 30-year violation of state election law, which requires officer elections to either be conducted entirely by Australian ballot or voice vote.
“Local elections are all or nothing by one means, floor or Australian Ballot unless specifically addressed in a Town Charter,” Mark Houle, elections administrator for the Secretary of State’s office, said in a December email to the town. “Therefore, everyone elected by Australian Ballot was not properly elected.”
Both Houle and Hyde Park’s attorney, David Rugh, initially recommended that the selectboard, having only one current member, Matt Morin, who was elected in 2022 by legitimate means, call a special town meeting at which the other members of the selectboard would have to be re-elected in order to comply with the letter of the law.
Instead, interim town administrator Stephen McDonald was able to get the Secretary of State’s blessing to allow selectboard members to ratify their own election. A special meeting of the selectboard was held Dec. 9 and the current board ratified the elections held in 2023 and 2024, even though they were technically illegitimately elected.
“All Town officials during the 2023 and 2024 Town meetings should have been elected from the floor only and not by Australian Ballot,” a letter from the selectboard read, calling it a procedural error. “Australian Ballot was mistakenly used to elect Town officials, including the majority of the sitting Selectboard.”
The letter stated the error could be “cured by a resolution of the legislative body of the municipality by a vote of two-thirds of all its members at a regular meeting or a special meeting called for that purpose, stating that the defect was the result of oversight, inadvertence, or mistake.”
The board did just that by unanimous vote, extending the action to all the boards and committees that were created by appointments of the selectboard and the actions of said boards and committees, for good measure.
Board vice chair Susan Bartlett said the incident was simply an oversight.
“It’s one of those things that sounds radical but wasn’t at all,” she said.
Bartlett said that, moving forward, the town will discuss possibly moving to Australian ballot for all segments of its currently in-person Town Meeting Day decision-making, just as voters in towns like Morristown have done, but continuing to conduct business from the floor at town meetings in order to ensure compliance with the law.
Other towns have attempted to find some ground between the in-person town meeting and moving fully to the polls for all municipal matters.
Though a groundswell of morning attendees at Stowe’s 2024 town meeting voted to move to Australian ballot for all officer elections and budgetary matters going forward, they will continue to hold in-person meetings for all non-budgetary matters.
In Cambridge, an effort is underway to increase residential participation around the budget-making process, promote voter turnout and make their town meeting more accessible.
“I think over the next few years, people are going to find a way to conduct town meetings that works for town our size,” Bartlett said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Hyde Park affirms elections after discovering decades-old error.