Article 1 of the Annual Town Meeting Warrant this year will ask voters whether to adopt Electronic Vote Tabulators, also known as EVTs or clickers, for use at Town Meeting. If adopted, these clickers will be used to count votes when a voice vote yields no clear majority. The devices will shorten the process of conducting a counted vote count from 20 minutes to about 90 seconds.
The clickers are fast, secure, and anonymous. Town officials hope that they will help to streamline Town Meeting to run as efficiently as possible, shortening the notoriously long meetings. The Select Board approved funding from the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) to pay for the devices, should Town Meeting choose to adopt them. The estimated cost is around $10k-$12k, depending on the number of clickers purchased.
In this special episode of “What’s New, Westford?” Town Moderator Angela Harkness stops by the podcast studio with the new clicker system, to introduce you to the devices and show you how the process works. You’ll see both the clickers as well as the software used to tally and display votes. After watching the demonstration, if you have any additional questions, please email them to aharkness@westfordma.gov.
