The Effect of the Official Ballot
Referendum
Form of Meeting on the Towns and
School Districts
of New Hampshire
Authors:
Douglas E. Hall
Executive Director
New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies
&
Stephen F. Knapp
Monadnock Strategic Planning
In Association with:
Institute for Policy and Social Science Research
University of New Hampshire
February 2000
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Summary of Findings
Major Findings
Other Findings
Summary of Recommendations
Introduction
1. Legislative Background
2. Forms of Local Governance
3. Rationale for the Study
4. Project Data Collection Efforts
Jurisdictions Reporting
Status in 1999
Propensity to Adopt
1. Size of Population
2. Tax Rate
Voter Participation
1. Voter Registration
2. Participation in Balloting
3. Absentee Balloting
4. Participation in Annual Meeting Deliberations
5. Budget Voting
Warrant Articles
1. Number of Articles
2. Adoption and Repeal of Official Ballot Voting
Local Budgets and Appropriations
1. Aggregate Level of 1998 Appropriations
2. Changes from 1997 to 1998
3. Bond Issue Decisions
Discussion of Findings
1. Population is the Issue, Not Taxes
2. The Special Case of School Districts
3. How Big is Too Big for Assembly Democracy?
4. The Quality of Public Participation in Local Government
Recommendations
1. New Alternatives and Ideas Needed
2. New Thinking About Voter Communications
3. Voting on Bond Issues
4. Collection of Information on Local Governance
Appendix 1: Population and City Charters
Appendix 2: Official Ballot Jurisdictions 1997-1999
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Many people assisted in the implementation of this project. Sara Browning was
consultant to the project in 1997, the first year of data collection. Dan Callaghan,
Mark Handley, and Shelly Uscinski assisted as volunteers in the tedious task of
extracting useful information from the voluminous materials submitted by town
and school district officials that year. Staff of the New Hampshire Municipal
Association, New Hampshire School Boards Association, and New Hampshire
School Administrators Association assisted by urging their members to complete
and return questionnaires to the project. Early advice was provided by Bernie
Waugh, legal counsel of the Municipal Association, and Ted Comstock, legal
counsel of the School Boards Association, as well as members of the Granite
State Taxpayers Association. The Survey Center at the University of New
Hampshire made hundreds of telephone calls to local officials during both 1997
and 1998 to urge completion and submission of questionnaires. Much assistance
was provided by the NH Department of Revenue Administration in 1998 and
1999 by allowing us access to the official budgetary forms filed by municipalities
and school districts as part of the Department’s annual tax rate-setting process.
Jan Haman was our assistant who spent many hours reviewing and extracting
data from these files. The Town Clerks Association also provided invaluable
assistance.
Most importantly, we must thank the hundreds of town clerks, school district
clerks, and school superintendents who went out of their way to compile and
report to us information regarding local government actions in 1997 and 1998.
We could not have conducted this study without their willingness to go the extra
mile for us.
Summary of Findings
Definitions: The Traditional open meeting is the system whereby all registered
voters in attendance at the annual meeting of the town or school district act as
the legislative body. They discuss, potentially amend, and dispose of each
warrant article at the meeting. Voters in Official ballot meeting jurisdictions
discuss and potentially amend warrant articles at an early deliberative session.
The final vote is done by ballot on election day. No-meeting jurisdictions are
those in which the voters have ceded their right to participate directly by the
establishment of a representative body, usually a city or town council.
Major Findings
The propensity of a town or school district to adopt the official ballot meeting is
more strongly associated with large population than it is with high tax rate. Larger
units of local government are much more likely to adopt this method than smaller
ones.
Participation in the deliberative process of the annual meeting is much higher in
traditional meeting towns and school districts when compared to official ballot
jurisdictions. Participation in each type of jurisdiction is higher in those
jurisdictions with smaller populations.
Approximately three times as many registered voters vote on the town’s budget
and special appropriations in official ballot towns compared to traditional open
meeting towns. For school districts, the ratio is even greater: nearly five times as
many voters voting on the budget in official ballot districts compared to traditional
districts.
Official ballot jurisdictions approve higher spending per capita than do traditional
jurisdictions.
From 1997 to 1998 official ballot towns and districts showed slightly greater rates
of increase in their voted appropriations than did open meeting jurisdictions.
Official ballot jurisdictions are much less likely to pass bond articles than
traditional open meeting towns and districts.
Other Findings
School districts are more likely to adopt official ballot meeting than
municipalities. Much of this difference is related to the large, multi-town
cooperative school districts for which there are no municipal counterparts.
There is no significant difference in voter registration between official
ballot and traditional municipalities and school districts.
There is no appreciable difference in the percentage of registered voters
who cast ballots in traditional and official ballot municipalities. About 5%
more registered voters cast ballots in official ballot school districts than
traditional school districts.
The difference in absentee balloting is negligible. The percentage of
voters voting absentee is very small for both types of governance.
Official ballot towns and school districts have more articles on the warrant
than traditional open meeting towns and districts. Also, the larger the
jurisdiction, the more articles on the warrant.
Once adopted, it appears unlikely that a jurisdiction will return to the
traditional open meeting form of governance.
Official ballot jurisdictions are marginally more likely to decrease their
appropriations from those originally presented by the executive body than
are traditional jurisdictions.
Summary of Recommendations
The NH Municipal Association, NH School Boards Association, and
the State should cooperate in considering and creating new
alternatives for governance among towns and school districts that
outgrow the ability to maintain traditional open meetings.
Official ballot jurisdictions require new methods to inform and
involve voters prior to the time they cast their ballots.
The NH Department of Revenue Administration should prepare a
report on local bond issue voting on 1999 and 2000 so the
legislature can consider whether further changes in law regarding
the required super-majority (RSA 33:8) may be necessary.
The NH Department of Revenue Administration should annually
compile data submitted by local jurisdictions into a single database
on local budgets and citizen participation in local governance. The
legislature should provide the necessary funds for this purpose,
estimated at no more than $10,000.
Introduction
1. Legislative Background
In 1995 the New Hampshire legislature passed Senate Bill 2 (SB2) and
the governor signed it into law. This legislation created RSA 40:13, the
official ballot law. Its provisions are still commonly known as SB2, its
original bill number, and we will use both names interchangeably in this
report.
This law provides a mechanism for voters to replace the traditional open
town and school district meetings with an official ballot process. If voters in
a town or school district adopt SB2, subsequent years’ budgets will be
discussed and amended in the open meeting but are only voted upon by
ballot on the town election day. In fact, all warrant articles, whether
involving money or not, are determined by this method. This proposal was
vigorously debated in the legislature before passage in 1995 and both
proponents and opponents offered theoretical arguments to bolster their
case.
Proponents argued that more people would vote on the budget by ballot
than in open meeting and hoped that this would rein in growth of local
budgets and escalating property tax rates. Opponents argued that
attendance at town and school district meetings would decline; that the
process itself would be onerous; that so-called "default" budgets which
would be implemented if the proposed budget failed would harm local
government; that in some communities absentee "snowbird" ballots would
decide the local budget.
The same arguments have since been heard in communities around the
state as citizens have debated whether to adopt the provisions of SB2 in
their town or school district.
2. Forms of Local Governance
New Hampshire state law provides for a variety of means of governance
for its towns and school districts. For the purposes of this study, the critical
question is the means by which the voters get to participate in
appropriating funds and setting budgets: through a traditional meeting
open to all voters, by official ballot on election day, or not at all.
Traditional open meeting is the system whereby all registered voters in
attendance at the annual meeting of the town or school district act as the
legislative body. The Board of Selectmen in towns and the School Board
in school districts prepare the warrant that contains the items (articles) to
be acted upon by the legislative body. Generally, the body of voters
attending may amend an article before they vote it up or down. Any voter
who does not attend the meeting has no role in the process.
Official ballot meeting jurisdictions are the ones that have adopted the
provisions of RSA 40:13. In these, the articles contained on the warrant
are voted up or down in the voting booth on election day. Some time
before the voting a deliberative session is held in which the Board of
Selectmen or School Board present the articles for discussion and at
which those voters in attendance may make amendments by majority vote
as they see fit.
No-meeting jurisdictions are those in which the voters have ceded their
right to participate directly in establishment of budgets to a representative
body, usually a city or town council. These have been established as part
of the adoption of a city or town charter. In such cases the elected body
acts as both the executive and legislative branches.
State law allows for a few hybrid forms. These have been assigned to one
of the above categories based on the role of the voters in establishing
budgets and voting appropriations.
Voters in jurisdictions that are dissatisfied with the traditional open
meeting form of governance have two options under state law. They may
adopt the official ballot referendum form of governance under RSA 40:13,
or they may adopt a charter under RSA 49–D3 and RSA 49–B (also
known as House Bill 141 or HB141).
To substitute the SB2 form of governance requires that a warrant article
be placed on the ballot (by petition or by the governing board) and that
60% of the "yea" and "nay" votes on the article be "yea" votes. A similar
60% super-majority is also required to repeal governance under SB2 once
it has been established.
3. Rationale for the Study
The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies was formed in late
1996. Local governments that had adopted the new form of governance
earlier that year were preparing for their first year of official ballot
implementation in February and March of 1997. It was apparent that there
was no planned central collection of data to determine what the effect of
the new procedures would be.
Because this change in local governance was one of the most significant
in recent history, the Center’s Board of Directors decided to initiate this
project. The goal was to test the various hypotheses that had been put
forward by both proponents and opponents of the measure.
Information about how the process unfolded in each community was not
uniformly reported to any state agency. Indeed, as we carried out this
project in both 1997 and 1998 we discovered that lists prepared by both
state government agencies and associations of local governments that
purported to identify those official ballot jurisdictions contained errors. No
central authority had a completely accurate list of the governance status of
all local jurisdictions, let alone data on any effect that changes in
governance might have brought about.
Local newspapers did cover the debates about adoption of official ballot
voting and the results of implementation in districts and towns in their
readership areas. However, this information was not collected uniformly
nor was it reported centrally.
Had the Center not undertaken this project, important information about
the first two years of implementation would have been lost forever.
4. Project Data Collection Efforts
There are 410 units of local government encompassed by this study.
Among the 234 towns and cities, 14 are of the "no-meeting" type. Among
the 176 school districts, 9 are of the "no-meeting" type. Data were solicited
from the remaining 387 jurisdictions.
In setting up this project the Center asked the NH Municipal Association,
NH School Boards Association, Granite State Taxpayers Association and
NH Department of Revenue Administration to suggest data elements to be
collected and preserved in the Center’s database.
Beginning at the conclusion of town and school district meetings in 1997
the Center began a two-year data collection effort. In 1997, survey forms
were sent from the New Hampshire Municipal Association to town clerks
and from the New Hampshire School Boards Association to school district
clerks. The UNH Survey Center made follow-up telephone contacts with
those districts and towns that did not respond initially. Ultimately 154
towns and 93 school districts provided copies of their annual reports,
minutes of their 1997 annual meetings, and other data.
In 1998, thanks to the cooperation of the NH Department of Revenue
Administration (DRA), we were able to greatly reduce the amount of data
directly requested from the towns and school districts. Survey forms were
sent by the NH Municipal Association to town clerks and by the NH School
Administrators Association to the superintendents of schools. The UNH
Survey Center again made telephone calls to non-respondents. As a
result, the 1998 data are more complete than for 1997. In 1998, 189 towns
and 130 school districts provided information.
We created a database that included the collected information on the voter
participation, warrant articles, and appropriation amounts. To these we
added line item revenue and appropriation figures for 1996, 1997, and
1998 provided on computer files by DRA. We used 1996 voter registration
figures contained in the Secretary of State’s Red Book to fill in those
towns that had not provided more recent data. And we used the Office of
State Planning’s 1995 estimated population of each jurisdiction.
Jurisdictions Reporting
Data collection was slightly more successful for the municipalities than the
school districts. As shown in Table 1, 85% of traditional towns and 92% of
official ballot towns submitted data in 1998. These reporting towns
covered 88% of the population operating under a traditional open meeting
and 95% of the population operating under the official ballot process that
year.
Table 1
Municipalities Reporting in 1998
By Count of Municipalities
All Reporting
Traditional
By Covered Population
Percent
All Reporting
Percent
181
153
85%
438,840
386,299
88%
Official Ballot
39
36
92%
282,644
269,452
95%
No-meeting
14
-
-
426,516
-
-
234
189
- 1,148,000
655,751
-
TOTAL
School Districts Reporting in 1998
By Count of Districts
All Reporting
Traditional
Official Ballot
No-meeting
TOTAL
By Covered Population
Percent
All Reporting
Percent
115
85
74%
351,733
257,242
73%
52
45
87%
577,209
527,202
91%
9
-
-
334,366
-
-
176
130
- 1,263,308
784,444
-
Of the school districts operating under the traditional open meeting format,
74% submitted data (representing 73% of the population covered by that
form of governance. 92% of the school districts operating under the official
ballot process submitted data (representing 91% of that population).
Reporting in 1997 averaged about 10-15% lower than in 1998 and the
data elements reported were far less complete.
While we were unable to obtain 100% reporting, we are satisfied that the
achieved reporting rates (very high given the voluntary nature of the
project) ensure that our findings and conclusions are warranted. We do
not believe they would materially differ if we had been able to obtain
universal reporting.
Status in 1999
Figure 1M displays the percentage of the state’s population that was
covered by each of the different forms of municipal governance. Figure 1S
displays the analogous percentages for school districts. While the news
media will again devote considerable attention to the "folksy" deliberations
of traditional town and school district meetings, it is now true that only
about 1/3 of the state’s population live in communities where the municipal
government operates under such a system and only about 1/4 live in
school districts so governed.
Figure 1M
Figure 1S
In 1997 31 towns used the official ballot meeting for the first time (28 were
SB2 and 3 were HB141). 8 more towns began in 1998 and 6 more
adopted it for 1999. In 1997 34 school districts operated under SB2. An
additional 17 school districts began in 1998 (one under HB141) and 3
more have adopted it for 1999. The geographic distributions of those
municipalities and school districts that have adopted the official ballot
meeting process are displayed in Map 1M and Map 1S
Map 1M
Map 1S
Propensity to Adopt
What factors might lead voters to determine that their local form of
governance should be changed? The New Hampshire economy fell into
recession in the late 1980s and a real estate "bubble" burst with some
property values falling 30% and more. At the same time local budgets
continued to grow. The result was a period in which full value tax rates
escalated rapidly. Tax revolts broke out, taking different forms in different
communities. All this was a backdrop to the passage of SB2 by the
legislature and its consideration by voters at the local level.
History and political philosophy confirm that maintaining a pure democracy
is difficult as the population of the jurisdiction increases. The ancient
Greek city-states’ had a practice of "hiving off" self-governing colonies
when population grew too large. In nineteenth century New Hampshire, a
representative form of elected city councils replaced the pure democracy
of open meetings when town populations grew large (see Appendix 1).
The 1970-1990 period saw 77 towns in New Hampshire more than double
in population. 42 small towns grew by over 2,000, 25 of which had started
under 3,500 population in 1970 and had grown to over 5,500 by 1990.
This too was a backdrop to the new possibility of official ballot voting.
We investigated to what extent the propensity to adopt official ballot voting
is related to a jurisdiction’s population and its tax rate.
1. Size of Population
There are 220 towns that are eligible to adopt the official ballot form of
local governance (all except the 14 no-meeting communities). We ordered
them from lowest and highest on the basis of their 1995 population and
then created five equal groups of 44 towns. We similarly divided the 167
eligible school districts into three groups based on their population. Table
2 displays information about each of these groups.
Table 2
Municipality Population Groups
Group
Count
of
Towns
Population
Range of
Group
Total
Population
Average
Population
Percent of
Total
Population
Tiny
44
25-800
21,169
481
2.9%
Very Small
44
801-1,540
49,523
1,126
6.9%
Small
44
1,541-2,935
90,734
2,062
12.6%
Medium
44
2,936-4,800
161,919
3,680
22.4%
Large
44
TOTAL
4,801-27,000
220
398,139
9,049
721,484
55.2%
100.0%
School District Population Groups
Group
Count of
Districts
Population
Range of
Group
Total
Population
Average
Population
Percent of
Total
Population
Small
56
25-1,900
51,250
915
5.5%
Medium
56
1,901-6,100
195,442
3,490
21.0%
Large
55
6,101-32,000
682,250
12,405
73.4%
TOTAL
167
928,942
100.0%
We then investigated the propensity of jurisdictions in each group to adopt
official ballot voting. Figures 2M and 2S display the results.
Figure 2M
Figure 2S
In both school districts and towns, the larger population jurisdictions are
much more likely to adopt official ballot voting than the smaller ones.
2. Tax Rate
We ordered the towns from lowest and highest on the basis of their 1996
full value tax rates and again created five equal groups of 44 towns. Table
3 displays the results.
Table3
Municipality Tax Rate Groups
Group
Count of 1996 Full Value
Towns Tax Rate Range
of Group
Total
Population
Average
Population
Percent of
Total
Population
Lowest
44
$5.00-$20.15
77,788
1,768
10.8%
Next
Lowest
44
$20.16-$24.38
150,863
3,429
20.9%
Middle
44
$24.39-$28.24
131,201
2,982
18.2%
Next
Highest
44
$28.25-$32.53
185,096
4,207
25.7%
Highest
44
$32.54-$52.88
176,536
4,012
24.5%
TOTAL
220
721,484
100.0%
Figure 3 displays the count of official ballot municipalities in each of the
tax rate groups for each of the three years 1997, 1998, and 1999. It is
similar in design to figure 2M. The chart shows that a slightly higher
proportion of towns in the highest tax rate group have adopted official
ballot meeting governance than the lower tax rate communities.
When Figures 2M and 3 are compared, it is clear that the propensity to
adopt official ballot meeting governance is more strongly associated
with large population than it is with high tax rate.
Figure 3
There is also a moderate relationship between community population and
tax rate. On average, more populous municipalities have higher tax rates
than less populated ones. Figure 4 is a scatter plot that displays each
town at the point where its population and tax rate intersect. (The x-axis is
a logarithmic scale in order to compress the great differences in
populations. Even then, two towns are off the plot because they have
populations below 100.) Those towns that have adopted SB2 (or HB141)
are displayed in green. It is easy to see that most of these towns tend to
fall on the right side of the graph (higher population) rather than at the top
half of the graph (higher tax rate).
Figure 4
The "no-meeting" municipalities are also displayed on the graph (with the
exception of Manchester which is slightly off the graph to the right). This
figure clearly shows that SB2 is, for the most part, an alternative form of
governance being adopted by communities that are too large for a pure
democracy, yet unwilling or unable to convert to a representative form of
government such as a town or city council.
Voter Participation
Proponents and opponents of SB2 have theorized what happens to voter
participation when a community adopts the official ballot meeting form of
governance. We investigated a number of questions regarding any
differences in voter participation between those municipalities and school
districts operating under the traditional open meeting and the official ballot
meeting.
1. Voter Registration
The first step in voter participation is registration. Only registered voters
may vote at open town meetings or by official ballot. Table 4 displays the
number of registered voters in municipalities and school districts based on
their form of governance in 1998.
Table 4
Voter Registration in Municipalities
Population
Registered
Voters
% of Population
Registered
Official Ballot
282,644
192,228
68.0%
Traditional
438,840
296,961
67.7%
Total
721,484
489,189
67.8%
Voter Registration in School Districts
Population
Registered
Voters
% of Population
Registered
Official Ballot
577,209
390,834
67.7%
Traditional
351,733
240,254
68.3%
Total
928,942
631,088
67.9%
The age structure and citizenship status of a community’s population can
affect how many of its residents are eligible to be voters. So too can
transiency in a community if voter lists are not regularly purged and
updated. Even with these possible limitations, it is clear that there is no
significant difference in voter registration between official ballot and
traditional municipalities and school districts.
We did investigate variations in registration by population group against
governance type but found no consistent or meaningful differences.
Overall both official ballot and traditional meeting towns and school
districts have 68% of their population registered.
2. Participation in Balloting
Local elections are held by towns and school districts every March. No
matter which form of governance in a jurisdiction, balloting occurs for
positions such as selectman, school board member, road agent, auditor,
town clerk, school district clerk, etc. In official ballot meeting jurisdictions,
however, the proposed budget, special appropriation items, and bond
issues will also appear on the ballot.
We were able to obtain the count of ballots cast in 1998 local elections for
190 towns (out of 220) and 152 school districts (out of 167). We then
compared the number of ballots to the number of registered voters in both
traditional and official ballot meeting jurisdictions. The results are
displayed in Table 5.
There is no meaningful difference in voter turnout in the two types of
towns. In school district, however, about 5% more voters cast ballots in
the official ballot meeting districts than in the traditional open meeting
districts.
We had been less successful in obtaining the balloting data in 1997,
having received the information from only 75 towns and 53 school
districts. Nevertheless, the 1997 data confirm the 1998 results. Both 1997
and 1998 results are displayed in Figure 5.
Table 5
1998 Balloting in Municipalities
Towns
Registered
Voters
Ballots
Cast
% of Registered
Voters Casting
Ballots
36
182,979
52,482
28.7%
Traditional
154
261,103
76,596
29.3%
Total
190
444,082
129,078
29.1%
Official Ballot
1998 Balloting in School Districts
Districts
Registered
Voters
Ballots
Cast
% of Registered
Voters Casting
Ballots
50
380,814
110,690
29.1%
Traditional
102
205,729
49,226
23.9%
Total
152
586,543
159,916
27.3%
Official Ballot
Figure 5
There is no appreciable difference in the percentage of registered
voters who cast ballots in traditional and official ballot
municipalities. About 5% more registered voters cast ballots in
official ballot school districts than traditional school districts.
3. Absentee Balloting
We also investigated the likelihood that absentee voters would seek to
vote in their local elections. Some had postulated that residents who were
usually out of state during March meeting season (those with winter
homes in sunnier climes) would chose to vote on the local budgets by
absentee ballot if they were given that option.
Table 6
1998 Absentee Balloting in Municipalities
Official Ballot
Towns
Registered
Voters
36
182,979
Ballots Absentee
Cast
Ballots
Cast
52,482
2,400
% of Registered
Voters Casting
Absentee Ballots
1.3%
Traditional
152
257,156
75,320
3,453
1.3%
Total
188
440,135
127,802
5,853
1.3%
1998 Absentee Balloting in School Districts
Districts
Registered
Voters
46
347,585
100,227
4,628
1.3%
Traditional
100
203,104
48,377
1,850
0.9%
Total
146
550,689
148,604
6,478
1.2%
Official Ballot
Ballots Absentee
Cast
Ballots
Cast
% of Registered
Voters Casting
Absentee Ballots
Overall, 1.3% of registered voters cast absentee ballots. There was a
slightly lower rate of absentee voting in traditional open meeting school
districts. The shortfall, however, amounts to only 854 votes over 100
towns.
The difference in absentee balloting is negligible. The percentage of
voters voting absentee is very small for both types of governance.
These are averages; we did review the figures by district and town. The
highest absentee voter participation tends to be in communities that have
larger percentages of vacation homes. Freedom School District, for
example, had 8.3% of its registered voters cast absentee ballots. Towns
such as Rye, Tuftonboro, Stoddard, and Hebron all had more than 5% of
their registered voters cast absentee ballots. The higher rates of absentee
voting in second-home communities appear to occur about the same
under both traditional and official ballot meeting types of governance.
4. Participation in Annual Meeting Deliberations
Both SB2 and traditional jurisdictions hold annual meetings of voters in the
late winter. The difference is that in the traditional open meetings each
warrant article is debated, potentially amended, and ultimately voted upon
by those in attendance. In jurisdictions where the official ballot meeting
form of governance has been adopted, the meeting (now commonly called
the deliberative session), can discuss and amend warrant articles, but no
final vote takes place. Instead, the articles (as amended if any
amendments are passed) are then placed on the ballot for voting
Table 7
1998 Annual Meeting Attendance in Municipalities
Towns
Registered
Voters
Attending
Meeting
% of Registered
Voters Attending
Official Ballot
Traditional
33
175,569
4,116
2.3%
144
243,261
22,494
9.2%
1998 Annual Meeting Attendance in School Districts
Districts
Registered
Voters
Attending
Meeting
% of Registered
Voters Attending
Official Ballot
44
355,246
6,939
2.0%
Traditional
79
166,180
10,077
6.1%
We obtained attendance information from most town and school district
clerks. There is no requirement that the count of voters be part of the
minutes they take and many votes are taken by voice so there may be no
actual count of votes. In many cases the attendance figures were taken
from the voter checklists used at the meetings. In a few less formal
communities, the clerks provided us their best estimate of the attendance.
Table 7 displays the results. Attendance at the annual meetings in those
jurisdictions that have adopted SB2 is about 1/4 to 1/3 that which occurs in
traditional jurisdictions. Overall, 9.2% of the voters participated in
traditional open town meetings, but only 2.3% participated in the
deliberative meetings in official ballot towns. There is generally lower
turnout for school district meetings, with 6.1% participating in traditional
jurisdictions compared to 2.0% in official ballot districts.
We had far less complete reporting for 1997 but the results from those
towns and districts that did report confirmed the 1998 data to a large
degree. Both years’ data are plotted in Figure 6.
Figure 6
We recognize that historically meeting attendance is proportionally lower
in larger communities. Thus, it is reasonable to question whether the lower
participation in official ballot jurisdictions might simply be the result of their
tending to be larger in population.
One way to test this theory would be to compare the attendance of SB2
jurisdictions with their own history of attendance prior to voting to adopt
SB2. The data for 1996 would be useful. However, there is no requirement
that meeting attendance information be submitted to any state agency nor
is there any requirement that such information be recorded and
maintained locally as a part of the public record. For the most part, 1996
information is lost to history. We did review the similar information we had
collected from jurisdictions that had operated under traditional open
meeting governance in 1997 but changed to SB2 or HB 141 in 1998. Of
those 17 school districts and 8 towns, we had complete data on only 9.
This is too small a subset from which to draw any conclusions.
Fortunately, there is another way to investigate this question. We can look
at meeting attendance in each of our population size groups. Figures 7M
and 7S display the results. Because of the small number of smaller
jurisdictions that have adopted official ballot meetings and reported to us,
some of the data should be used with caution. After accounting for size,
however, it is clear that voter participation in annual meetings is
approximately twice as great in towns and districts with traditional
meetings as in those that have adopted SB2 and HB141.
Participation in the deliberative process of the annual meeting is
much higher in traditional meeting towns and school districts when
compared to official ballot jurisdictions. Participation in each type of
jurisdiction is higher in those jurisdictions with smaller populations.
Figure 7M
Figure 7S
5. Budget Voting
We have compared participation in the processes of registration, balloting,
absentee balloting, and annual meeting. Voting on a jurisdiction’s budget,
however, takes place at a different time in traditional and official ballot
communities. In official ballot communities, a voter votes on the budget as
part of the balloting process while in traditional open meeting
communities, the budget vote is part of the annual meeting. We compare
the percentage of voters who voted on the budget in 1998 by combining
some of the data provided above.
Table 8
1998 Budget Voting in Municipalities
Official Ballot
Traditional
Towns
Registered
Voters
Voting on
Budget
% Voting
on Budget
36
182,979
52,482
28.7%
144
244,152
22,494
9.2%
Ratio
3.1
1998 Budget Voting in School Districts
Districts
Registered
Voters
Voting on
Budget
% Voting
on Budget
Official Ballot
50
380,814
110,690
29.1%
Traditional
79
166,180
10,077
6.1%
Ratio
4.8
Approximately three times as many registered voters vote on the
town’s budget and special appropriations in official ballot towns
compared to traditional meeting towns. For school districts, the ratio
is even greater: nearly five times as many voters voting on the
budget in official ballot districts compared to traditional districts. The
reason the ratio is higher for districts than towns is the relatively lower
turnout for traditional school district meetings in comparison to town
meetings. The balloting turnout, as expected, is almost equal, 29%, for
both towns and districts that have adopted official ballot meeting
governance.
Warrant Articles
1. Number of Articles
In 1998 there were 4,720 articles on the warrants of the 207 towns from
which we were able to obtain this information. The average warrant,
therefore, had 23 articles. Among official ballot meeting communities the
average was 27, while among traditional meeting towns it was 22. Eleven
towns had fewer than 10 articles while seventeen towns had 40 or more
articles.
There were 1,356 articles on the warrants of the 150 school districts from
which we were able to obtain this information. The average warrant,
therefore, had 9 articles. Among official ballot meeting districts the
average was 11, while among traditional meeting districts it was 8. Twelve
districts had fewer than 5 articles while five districts had 20 or more
articles.
Higher population towns and districts had more warrant articles than those
with lower population. Among the high population school districts, those
utilizing the official ballot meeting had an average of 32 articles while
those using the traditional meeting had an average of 22 articles.
Official ballot towns and school districts have more articles on the
warrant than traditional open meeting towns and districts. Also, the
larger the jurisdiction, the more articles on the warrant.
Based on our review of the minutes of the towns and districts, we
speculate that some official ballot jurisdictions include contingency articles
in case a particular article should fail. For example, if the article to totally
renovate the town hall fails, then a second article might be included to do
emergency repairs. While these types of situations can be worked out in
traditional town meetings under a single article by the amendment
process, there is no provision for amendment at the time of the final ballot
vote in official ballot situations.
2. Adoption and Repeal of Official Ballot Voting
We received reports of votes on the adoption of SB2 from thirteen towns
and eleven school district on their 1998 ballots. The ballot question
achieved the necessary 60% of votes cast in six towns and in three school
districts. These are shaded in Table 9.
Table 9
1998 Votes to Adopt SB2 in Municipalities
In Favor
Opposed
Percent in
Favor
2,240
740
75%
Carroll
Not available
Not available
Passed
Epping
605
487
55%
Henniker
392
409
49%
28
92
23%
Not available
Not available
Passed
48
164
23%
Not available
Not available
Passed
1,635
933
64%
365
295
55%
Not available
Not available
Passed
Tamworth
185
153
55%
Warren
124
105
54%
Amherst
Hill
Litchfield
Milan
New Ipswich
Pelham
Plymouth
Rye
1998 Votes to Adopt SB2 in School Districts
In Favor
Opposed
Percent in
Favor
Auburn
225
280
45%
Chesterfield
231
243
49%
Gilford
460
458
50%
Harrisville
87
144
38%
Hinsdale
92
150
38%
Litchfield
Not available
Not available
Passed
Madison
211
189
53%
Marlborough
227
262
46%
Rollinsford
244
180
58%
Rye
888
435
67%
Not available
Not available
Passed
White Mtn.
We also received reports on votes to rescind SB2 from four towns and five
school district on their 1998 ballots. None of these ballot questions
achieved the necessary 60% of votes.
Table 10
1998 Votes to Rescind SB2 in Municipalities
In Favor
Opposed
Percent in
Favor
Barrington
457
598
43%
Bennington
100
291
26%
Weare
335
1,289
21%
Winchester
249
410
38%
1998 Votes to Rescind SB2 in School Districts
In Favor
Opposed
Percent in
Favor
Allenstown
Not available
Not available
Failed
Barrington
451
604
43%
Claremont
456
1,352
25%
Weare
323
1,332
20%
Wilton-L’boro
317
367
46%
It is clearly easier to achieve the necessary 60% vote to adopt the official
ballot voting than it is to achieve the same 60% to repeal the measure.
While we have a history of adoption votes of only three years, rescission
has an even briefer history. Nevertheless, based on this experience it
appears that future years will see adoption of SB2 or HB141 by more
towns and school districts, especially among those with larger populations.
Once adopted, it appears unlikely that a jurisdiction will return to the
traditional open meeting form of governance.
Local Budgets and Appropriations
1. Aggregate Level of 1998 Appropriations
We obtained data from 220 towns and 167 school districts on their 1998
proposed and voted appropriations. From the total amounts we subtracted
those appropriations for which funds were to be raised by bond issues in
order to separate the operating appropriations from the large capital
appropriations.
In each municipality and school district the governing body prepares a
warrant with proposals for appropriations that are to be considered by the
townspeople. In an official ballot jurisdiction, this proposed budget may be
amended during the deliberative session and is voted on by ballot;
operating budgets that do not win approval are automatically replaced by
a "default budget". In traditional jurisdictions, there is no "default budget"
and the amending and voting processes both take place at the open
meeting and continue until some budget is passed.
The initially proposed operating appropriations for the 220 municipalities
totaled $563,993,845. The proposed operating appropriations for the 167
school districts totaled $1,156,759,312. At the end of their respective
deliberative and voting processes, the total approved by the voters was
$556,332,833 for the municipalities and $1,147,752,029 for the school
districts. Of the total local public expenditure approved by the voters, 2/3
was for schools and 1/3 for municipal governments.
Higher appropriations per capita were proposed and approved in
official ballot municipalities than in traditional ones, while the
difference among school districts was statistically negligible. This is
shown in Table 11. The municipal difference is almost certainly associated
with the greater population base of the official ballot communities: larger
communities tend to have water, sewer, library, police, economic
development, and recreation budgets that may not even exist in the
smaller towns. Public school programs tend, however, to be very similar
from district to district because of law and tradition.
Table 11
1998 Operating Appropriations in Municipalities
Official Ballot
Traditional
Total
Count of Towns
39
181
220
1995 Population
282,644
438,840
721,484
Proposed Amount
$246,400,113
$317,593,732
$563,993,845
Voted Amount
$238,886,764
$317,446,069
$556,332,833
Proposed/Capita
$871.77
$723.71
$781.71
Voted/Capita
$845.19
$723.38
$771.10
Change/Capita
$(26.58)
$(0.34)
$(10.62)
-3.0%
+0.0%
-1.4%
% Changed from
Proposed
1998 Operating Appropriations in School Districts
Count of Districts
1995 Population
52
115
167
577,209
351,733
928,942
Proposed Amount
$720,071,844
$436,687,468 $1,156,759,312
Voted Amount
$713,553,819
$434,198,210 $1,147,752,029
Proposed/Capita
$1,247.51
$1,241.53
$1,245,24
Voted/Capita
$1,236.21
$1,234.45
$1,235.55
$(11.29)
$(7.08)
$(9.70)
-0.9%
-0.6%
-0.8%
Change/Capita
% Changed from
Proposed
In aggregate, voters in traditional towns approved budgets almost
identical to those proposed by their governing bodies. Voters in
official ballot towns had a slightly greater propensity to reduce their
proposed budgets, reducing them by 3% on average. The difference
among school districts, however, was negligible, with reductions in
both official ballot and traditional districts under 1%.
Figure 8
2. Changes from 1997 to 1998
Table 12 contains the 1997 and 1998 voted appropriations for these 220
municipalities. Voter approved operating appropriations in the towns in
1998 were 7.2% higher than the year before while the increase in the
school districts was somewhat less, 6.1%.
Overall, voters in official ballot jurisdictions approved 1998 budgets
that showed slightly greater rates of increase over 1997 than did
voters in traditional jurisdictions. The 39 municipalities that operated
under SB2 or HB141 in 1998 had a 10.1% increase in their aggregate
voted operating appropriations over 1997. This was an increase of $77.44
per capita, double that of the 181 traditional towns. While the one year
increase among school districts was more uniform, the official ballot
districts did increase their spending on a percentage and per capita basis
slightly more than the traditional districts.
Table 12
1997-1998 Operating Appropriations in Municipalities
Official Ballot
Traditional
Total
Count of Towns
39
181
220
1995 Population
282,644
438,840
721,484
1997 Voted
$216,999,723
$301,962,244
$518,961,967
1998 Voted
$238,886,764
$317,446,069
$556,332,833
$21,887,041
$15,483,825
$37,370,866
Increase/Capita
$77.44
$35.28
$51.80
% Increase
10.1%
5.1%
7.2%
Increase
1997-1998 Operating Appropriations in School Districts
Count of Districts
1995 Population
52
115
167
577,209
351,733
928,942
1997 Voted
$671,357,953
$410,740,259 $1,082,098,212
1998 Voted
$713,553,819
$434,198,210 $1,147,752,029
Increase
Increase/Capita
% Increase
$42,195,866
$23,457,951
$65,653,817
$73.10
$66.69
$70.68
6.3%
5.7%
6.1%
Figure 9
This is clearly the most surprising finding of this study. Many observers
assumed that the official ballot communities would have shown a
propensity to increase their appropriations at a much lower rate than the
traditional communities. Contrary to those assumptions, at least between
1997 and 1998, traditional towns both spent less and increased their
spending less rapidly than official ballot towns. Among school districts, the
differences in spending levels per capita and the increase in those
spending levels were insignificant.
3. Bond Issue Decisions
We also investigated what happened to bond issues proposed in 1998 in
the municipalities and school districts. Almost exclusively, bond issues are
proposed for major capital improvements: land acquisition, facility
construction and renovation, major equipment purchases. To pass, bond
issues were required to obtain a 2/3 super-majority of the voters in both
traditional and official ballot jurisdictions. This requirement makes passage
of bond issues more difficult than passage of operating budgets. It is not,
surprising, therefore, that voters in both types of jurisdictions voted
bonded appropriations considerably below those proposed on the original
warrants.
Table 13
1998 Bonded Appropriations in Municipalities
Official Ballot
Traditional
Total
Count of Towns
39
181
220
1995 Population
282,644
438,840
721,484
Proposed Amount
$24,730,164
$34,320,816
$59,050,980
Voted Amount
$12,591,164
$28,406,773
$40,997,937
Proposed/Capita
$87.50
$78.21
$81.85
Voted/Capita
$44.50
$64.73
$56.82
$(42.95)
$(13.48)
$(25.02)
50.9%
82.8%
69.4%
Change/Capita
% Approved
1998 Bonded Appropriations in School Districts
Count of Districts
1995 Population
Proposed Amount
Voted Amount
Proposed/Capita
Voted/Capita
Change/Capita
% Approved
52
115
167
577,209
351,733
928,942
$135,821,381
$48,736,801
$184,558,182
$11,115,681
$10,193,743
$21,309,424
$235.31
$138.56
$198.68
$19.26
$28.98
$22.94
$(216.05)
$(109.58)
$(175.74)
8.2%
20.9%
11.5%
As shown in Table 13, proposals in the towns for new bonding were not
dissimilar, averaging $87.50 per capita in official ballot communities and
$78.21 per capita in traditional communities.
Voters in official ballot jurisdictions were very much less likely to
approve bonds to fund capital projects than were voters in traditional
jurisdictions.
About half of the dollar amount was approved by voters in the official ballot
towns, while more than 80% of the proposed amount was approved in
traditional towns. School districts were much less likely to see their
proposed bond issues approved than municipalities. Proposals in official
ballot districts totaled almost $100/capita more than in the traditional
districts. While 20% of the proposed amount was approved in traditional
school districts, less 10% was approved in official ballot districts.
Figure 10
The above analysis is weighted based on the dollar value of proposed and
voted bond issues. The disposition of a large bond issue contributes more
to the result than does the disposition of a smaller one. We also counted
the number of jurisdictions in which at least one bond issue was placed on
the warrant and the number that approved one (or more) issues. Table 14
and Figure 11 present the results of this analysis of the propensity of a
town or school district to approve at least one bond issue.
Table 14
1998 Bond Approval by Municipalities
Official Traditional
Ballot
Total
1 or more bond issues on warrant
15
49
64
1 or more bond issues approved
6
33
39
No bond issues approved
9
16
25
40%
67%
61%
% approving at least 1 bond issue
1998 Bond Approval by School Districts
1 or more bond issues on warrant
19
16
35
1 or more bond issues approved
4
7
11
15
11
26
21%
44%
31%
No bond issues approved
% approving at least 1 bond issue
Figure 11
The probability that at least one proposed bond issue will be approved is
about 25% higher in traditional towns and school districts than in official
ballot jurisdictions. In addition, towns are about 20% more likely to
approve at least one proposed bond issue than are school districts and
this difference is consistent for both types of governance.
Discussion of Findings
1. Population is the Issue, Not Taxes
Since 1995, discussion of the adoption of the official ballot in towns and
school districts has been viewed as a discussion about controlling local
spending and, thus, the level of local taxes. The involvement of local
taxpayers associations among the primary proponents of changing to an
official ballot has caused much of this perception.
Our findings, however, challenge the notion that official ballot voting is
really about spending and taxation.
The propensity to adopt official ballot voting is strong in larger towns and
school districts, not necessarily in those with higher taxes. And, once
adopted, there are minimal differences in operating budget decisions.
The real issue appears to be the inability of traditional open town and
school district meetings to function to the satisfaction of local residents in
larger jurisdictions. Budgets and taxes are simply the content of local
debate that must be resolved, whatever form of local government exists.
Since the mid-1960s, New Hampshire has experienced rapid population
growth. This growth has been both the result and the cause of economic
growth. It has, therefore, been touted as a benefit. Local communities and
the State itself have developed mechanisms to encourage further
population growth.
Almost entirely overlooked has been the fact that the traditional form of
pure democracy represented by our town and school district meetings can
only work with relatively small populations. The ancient Greeks believed in
an upper limit of about 5,000 and hived off colonies when their populations
grew too large. New Hampshire's own thirteen cities replaced the open
meeting with representative city councils when their populations averaged
8,200. Yet today we have towns with a population of 20,000 or more trying
to maintain a form of government that is ideal for no more than a few
hundred.
Until the movement to introduce official ballot voting began, there was little
systematic thinking or planning for the changes in local governance that
increased populations would bring to New Hampshire communities. Few
alternatives were being designed or advocated. No warnings about the
downside of larger populations on local direct democracy were being
issued. Unfortunately, by being seen as simply as a taxing and spending
issue, the introduction of official ballot voting has not yet sparked the
discussion we need about the future of local government as town and
school district jurisdictions continue to grow.
2. The Special Case of School Districts
Since the late 1940's, the State has encouraged the creation of larger
regional school districts, especially in regard to high schools. Partly, this
was based on research showing that students in larger schools tended to
perform better and partly it was done on the basis of cost efficiencies that
might result from larger school units. Even today, the state still rewards
larger cooperative districts with greater state building aid than it does
comparable small, single town districts.
Consolidation among municipal governments has not been similarly
encouraged.
This policy has resulted in multi-town cooperative districts and "Authorized
Regional Enrollment Agreements" among other structures. By creating
jurisdictions with larger populations, it has had the unanticipated side
effect of lifting some cooperative school districts above the 6,000
population threshold where it becomes more difficult to operate traditional
open meetings with reasonably high voter participation. This, we believe,
is the most important reason why official ballot voting has been acceptable
to a larger percentage of school district voters than municipal voters.
3. How Big is Too Big for Assembly Democracy?
This is the question that the citizens and news media of New Hampshire
have not addressed in recent years. Perhaps nostalgia and self-promotion
have conspired to pretend that all of New Hampshire can continue its rural
19th century traditions. Whatever the cause, we now need a realistic
appraisal. History can provide some guidance.
The ancient Greeks suggested a very practical limit. The assembly had to
be small enough for each speaker to be heard by all participants and,
especially, for the herald (our moderator) to be able to run the meeting
without "the lungs of a Stentor". Only in the twentieth century did
microphones and amplifiers allow us to overcome this limit.
A second limit is the capacity of available meeting facilities. Small town
halls can only accommodate a few hundred. While school gyms or lunch
rooms can often accommodate more, most jurisdictions would be very
hard pressed to find a single meeting place where 25% of the local voters
could gather comfortably and without violating fire regulations. Recently,
technology has allowed multiple sites to be joined together by closedcircuit television, although not always successfully.
These two problems have been described as contributing to the first
demise of a New England town meeting: "In 1822, Boston, with a
population in excess of 43,000, abandoned the town form of government
in favor of a city charter because of attendance problems. Faneuil Hall
was overcrowded when a controversial article was on the warrant, and
only voters near the moderator could hear the deliberations." New
Hampshire's thirteen cities adopted their city charters and gave up direct
meetings when their populations averaged only 8,200 (see Appendix 1).
There is, however, a third, more important limit which technology cannot
resolve. Assume that 20% of a jurisdiction's voters attend a deliberative
meeting, that 1/3 of those in attendance are inclined to speak about at
least one issue, and that the average speaker takes 3 minutes.
A meeting in a town with 600 voters will have an attendance of 120, of
whom 44 will speak for a total of slightly over 2 hours. Adding the
overhead time for opening, closing, voting, moderator's rulings, and
presentations by the school board or board of selectmen, the meeting will
take 3-4 hours. This is very close to the average open deliberative
meeting in a small community. If the same proportions held true in a town
of 6,000 voters, the meeting would last 30-40 hours!
Obviously this does not happen. To accommodate the larger population,
each citizen has less potential "air time". Of those who attend the meeting,
a smaller percentage will actually speak. Participants who might have
addressed their peers (had they been living in small towns) will be
precluded from doing so by the shared sense that it is more important "to
move the issue along". Understanding that they might not have an
opportunity to share their views on issues, many will chose not to attend at
all. This explains our findings of much lower attendance rates in larger
jurisdictions.
Both the citizens who react to practical time limits by choosing not to
attend (and thus not even vote) and those who attend but "bite their
tongue" and do not speak, are potentially frustrated and alienated from the
process of local governance. Yet certainly some people do attend and
speak at these meetings. Those who do, therefore, may be viewed by
others as part of a special elite or special interest group. Non-speakers
may feel that they have been effectively locked out from participation in
their local government.
Rather than surrender their role completely, these individuals are likely to
see official ballot voting as the only way they can still participate
meaningfully in their local government. It is our contention that this, and
not a tax revolt, explains the recent popularity and adoption of official
ballot voting.
4. The Quality of Public Participation in Local Government
There are fundamental qualitative differences among the alternative forms
of local government that a community may adopt. The most important
difference is the effect of the single individual on the outcome of a
legislative action. At one extreme, city and town council and
representative town meeting forms, the individual voter has a small
indirect effect on the action by virtue of voting for a representative to the
Council. The Councilor is accountable to all the voters from his/her district.
At the other extreme in the open town meeting the individual has the
opportunity directly effect the outcome through his/her speaking on the
particular proposal. Further, he or she can propose amendments to the
action. In between these two extremes, the official ballot form provides the
individual who attends the deliberative session with the opportunity to
amend the legislative proposal; however, there is no opportunity for him or
her to communicate with all of the actual voters as there is on the floor of
the open town meeting.
David Mathews, President of the Kettering Foundation has pointed out the
importance of public action in a democracy. He points out that public
action is more than voting and supporting elected officials. Before people
can act as a public, they must first decide how. Public deliberation is the
way that the public decides how to act. In Mathew’s view public
deliberation involves people weighing the costs and consequences of
various approaches to solving public problems so that they become aware
of how other members of the public see these costs and consequences.
This awareness, in turn, enables them to find courses of action that are
consistent with what the community values. In this way the public interest
is defined, and it is through these deliberative activities that the public
agenda is set.
This activist role for the public has its foundations in the earliest town
meetings and has been the backbone of local government throughout the
history of New Hampshire. In the early history of the State, the public’s
very survival depended upon working together to solve problems. The
open meeting and the deliberative sessions associated with the official
ballot meeting assure a vestige of the deliberative concept. Gradually,
local government is being turned over to professional planners and
managers. Today, as the towns become larger and the pace of life
quickens, there are signs that the public’s role is shrinking to one of simply
voting. The poor attendance at deliberative sessions in SB2 towns and
school districts is testament to that fact.
Recommendations
1. New Alternatives and Ideas Needed
New and creative thinking should be applied to the question of how to best
provide a meaningful role for voters in local governance once population is
too large to maintain traditional open meetings. Until the passage of SB2
in 1995, the only alternative that had been adopted by any community was
the approval of a city or town charter. Official ballot voting is with us now,
just as city charters have been for more than 100 years.
One alternative that has been available under New Hampshire law but has
remained unused to date is that of the representative town meeting. RSA
49:D-3 outlines how such a method of governance would work in New
Hampshire towns, establishing the election of representatives from town
districts who would then be the designated voters at town meeting
although other voters would be able to speak and debate. This alternative
is not available, however, to school districts. It has been adopted by 42
towns in Massachusetts, 7 in Connecticut, 1 in Maine, and 1 in Vermont.
The town of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, for example, elects 429 meeting
members.
New ideas could also be considered and potentially enacted into law to
provide other choices to jurisdictions that have effectively outgrown the
ability to maintain open meetings. For example, a "sortition-based"
representative town meeting might maintain a truly diverse assembly yet
avoid special interest group electoral politics. Sortition is the random
selection of registered voters such as is used in the selection of our juries.
It was the primary method of selection in classical Athens, played a role in
the Republic of Venice, and has recently been proposed to replace the
lifetime and hereditary seats in the British House of Lords. If 100-400
voters were randomly selected for a single year, they might bring a
dedication to the job of governance not unlike that they bring to juries. A
recent description of sortition describes its advantage this way, "A system
of universal lot-drawing for public office would create proportionality in the
sense of giving public officials roughly the same composition as the
general citizenry without giving disproportionate weight to people with any
narrow set of characteristics."
We are not advocating these alternatives as superior to official ballot
voting, city charters, or any other alternative. We simply suggest that
rather than expending immense energy re-debating the advantages and
disadvantages of the specifics of SB2, some of our leaders should be
proposing and creating new and better ways for larger jurisdictions to
maintain a healthy local government and strong citizen involvement.
Primary leadership in this direction should come from the New Hampshire
Municipal Association, the New Hampshire School Boards Association,
and the State, probably through its legislative committees with
responsibility for municipal and school government. Two groups of leaders
should be brought together to begin discussion: those in jurisdictions that
have adopted official ballot voting and those with a population base or
growth that may lead them to do so in the future. A realistic assessment of
the situations faced by these communities and creative leadership, both
locally and at the state level, could result in new laws establishing new
options.
2. New Thinking About Voter Communications
Good public decisions are based on the informed judgments of the voters.
But how are voters informed? In small communities with traditional open
meetings, voters are informed of budget issues and options primarily in
three ways. First, before the meeting is held, the local gossip and word-ofmouth network is typically hard at work. Second, the open meeting allows
for discussion of the proposed budget and any controversial items prior to
one or more votes. For the most part, voters have an opportunity to hear
different explanations and views on each issue before they make up their
own minds. Third, the voters have an opportunity to change the proposal
in a manner that may lead a solution more acceptable to the voters than
the alternatives presented by the selectmen or school board. It is not
uncommon for some "horse-trading" to go on around a particularly
controversial warrant article. By the time a vote is taken, there is
reasonable assurance that all those who will vote have been able to take
into account new information and the divergent views of their fellow
residents.
Towns with larger populations, and especially those with many new
residents, do not have the strong word-of-mouth network that smaller
towns possess. Voters may arrive at the meeting having spoken only with
a few others about the priorities and issues in the proposed budget. For
towns that have adopted SB2, our findings show a much smaller
percentage of voters attending their deliberative sessions. Thus, when it is
time to cast a budget vote by ballot in the larger SB2 jurisdictions, neither
of the main communications mechanisms that are part of life in a small
jurisdiction will have ensured that voters are informed.
We also found examples of use of the amendment process available in
the deliberative sessions to undermine the intent of a warrant article. For
example, deliberative meeting attendees have amended a special
appropriation article so that the amount requested was "zero" dollars,
effectively taking the decision as to whether to purchase the item out of
the hands of the voter, who could then only approve or disapprove a zero
amount.
Some official ballot jurisdictions have tried, admittedly on an ad hoc basis,
to create new communications channels to inform potential voters of
budgets and the budget choices they will face on the ballot. For example,
some boards of selectmen and school boards have used direct mail to
inform voters of specific proposals and the reasons therefor. But a truly
informed electorate must have the opportunity to hear other views as well,
much as they do at an open meeting. There has been little or no
systematic planning for how to ensure that official ballot voters are
provided the information that will allow them to make informed choices
after hearing differing views.
The voters are generally dependent upon the media for information about
the legislative options before them. Most of the states major media outlets
serve a large region with multiple towns and school districts making it
virtually impossible for them to do justice to each of the 23 (on average)
warrant articles for each town and school district within their service area.
The NH Municipal Association and NH School Boards Association should
jointly address this gap by first surveying the actions of official ballot
jurisdictions, monitoring and supporting local experimentation, and then
recommending new communications channels. The potential of new
technology to be of great assistance should not be overlooked. Public
address systems and closed-circuit TV have already allowed for larger
meetings. Town web sites, voter e-mail, specialized password-protected
local "chat" rooms for discussing town business, streaming video, and
cable TV shows prior to balloting day, all hold promise as new avenues for
informing the local electorate. It is recognized that these new forms of
effective communication will have a budgetary cost not associated with
word of mouth and meeting attendance.
It will be important, however, for new communications channels to allow
for differing views, not just the official views of the selectmen or school
board. For this reason, these mechanisms should, perhaps, be under the
authority of the moderator. It is the moderator, after all, who is responsible
for ensuring that all views are treated fairly and with respect during
traditional open meetings and that ballots are cast and counted honestly.
3. Voting on Bond Issues
Official ballot jurisdictions have a much lower probability of approving
bond issues to fund capital projects such as school building, sewer system
renovation, etc. During the years of this study a 2/3 vote was required by
law for approval of such bond issues. The 1999 legislature, however,
amended the law, RSA 33:8, so that official ballot jurisdictions will require
only a 60% vote beginning in 2000.
Without taking sides on whether any specific proposed capital project is
truly needed or not, a very large and clear statistical difference in favor of
rejecting capital projects could, if continued over more than a few years,
become a serious problem. This is especially so because the very
communities that have adopted official ballot voting are, almost by
definition, experiencing population growth that will eventually necessitate
expanded or improved infrastructure.
Close monitoring of bond votes over the next few years should be
undertaken. The results of all such votes are already submitted to the NH
Department of Revenue Administration by both towns and school districts
annually. DRA should prepare relevant summaries of all such votes taken
in 1999 and 2000 and determine whether the great difference between
traditional and official ballot jurisdictions continues. This information
should be submitted to the legislature to determine whether further
changes in the requirement for approving bonded indebtedness should be
made.
4. Collection of Information on Local Governance
In both 1997 and 1998 as we planned this study's data collection activities,
we sought a definitive list of communities that had adopted SB2 and
HB141 forms of official ballot voting. We were provided lists by the NH
Department of Revenue Administration, the NH Municipal Association,
and the NH School Boards Association. We would later discover that each
of these lists contained errors and omissions. In effect, no one in New
Hampshire knew what forms of local governance were current in each of
our towns and school districts. Nor was there one location where that
information could be obtained.
For state elections each town must submit copies of voter checklists and
vote tallies to the Secretary of State, but there is no similar requirement for
local elections.
Local jurisdictions are required to send copies of proposed budgets,
minutes of meetings, and final approved budgets to DRA annually. These
materials are then filed, reviewed, and used by DRA to set tax rates.
However, each jurisdiction's information is maintained in a separate
manual file for each year. While standard forms are used, evidently no
attempt is made to enter the collected data into a single computer file that
would allow trends in a single community to be monitored over time, or
differences among communities to be ascertained easily. The submitted
minutes include votes on warrant articles, thus allowing a very good
estimate to be made of the number of voters participating.
We believe that the well-being of local governance in New Hampshire is
very important. Whether direct voter participation in local government is
falling off or is increasing ought to be of as much interest, if not more, as
voter turnout in national elections.
NH DRA should annually compile much of the quantitative local data
submitted to it into a single computer database and then make that data
available to all interested parties. Towns and school districts would be
able to see how they differ from each other in voter participation and
budget decisions.
We are aware that cost is often cited as a reason for the State not to
undertake any new activity. At times, however, our study was a pilot test of
such an undertaking. From our close observation, we believe this
recommendation would probably take one DRA staff member about one
month to complete each year. This time could be reduced still further to
the extent that local jurisdictions submit their material already in an agreed
upon standard computer form. We believe the investment of $5,000 $10,000 to accomplish this would result in a much better understanding of
the diversity and trends in local government budgets and citizen
participation in New Hampshire.
Appendix 1: Population and City Charters
Thirteen municipalities in New Hampshire are now legally incorporated as
cities, having adopted city charters. Manchester voters were the first to
approve a change from town government to a city charter government in
1846. The most recent was Lebanon, where the change occurred in 1958.
One of the most important changes that occurs when a town becomes a
city is that the voters as a whole give up their role as the legislative body
and entrust nearly all the work of the town meeting to an elected
legislative body, variously termed a city council or board of aldermen. The
direct democracy of town meeting is replaced by a representative form of
local government. Table A1 lists each New Hampshire city, the year is first
city charter was adopted, and an estimate of the total population at the
time. The average population of these New Hampshire municipalities was
just over 8,200 when their voters gave up direct democracy and replaced
it with a representative form of government. In all but one, the change
occurred before the population reached 10,000.
Table A1
Municipality
Manchester
Became
City
Estimated
Population
1846
9,653
Portsmouth
1849
9,553
Nashua
1853
9,279
Concord
1853
9,272
Dover
1855
8,349
Keene
1874
6,296
Rochester
1891
7,663
Somersworth
1893
6,452
Laconia
1893
6,713
Franklin
1895
4,966
Berlin
1897
7,339
Claremont
1947
12,611
Lebanon
1958
9,138
Average
8,253
In 1995 there were eighteen New Hampshire towns with populations that
exceeded 8,200 and which had not opted to become cities: Derry,
Conway, Raymond, Hooksett, Hanover, Amherst, Windham, Pelham,
Durham, Milford, Hampton, Exeter, Bedford, Goffstown, Hudson,
Londonderry, Merrimack, and Salem. Most of these towns had
experienced population growth of more than 100% since 1960. Of these,
Derry, Londonderry, and Durham, had adopted a town council form of
representative government in which budget is considered and passed by a
representative council. The remainder have struggled to maintain their
direct democracy and town meetings, at least for budget approval
purposes.
Appendix 2: Official Ballot Jurisdictions 1997-1999
Municipalities
1997
1998
1999
1998
1999
SB2
SB2
Allenstown
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Alton
SB2
SB2
SB2
Amherst
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Barrington
SB2
SB2
Allenstown
Alstead
Amherst
Atkinson
Barrington
School Districts
1997
SB2
SB2
Bedford
SB2
SB2
SB2
Bennington
SB2
SB2
SB2
Claremont
SB2
SB2
SB2
Canaan
SB2
SB2
SB2
Contoocook Valley
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Conway
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Derry Cooperative
SB2
SB2
SB2
Carroll
Charlestown
Conway
SB2
SB2
SB2
Epsom
Danville
SB2
SB2
SB2
Exeter
Dorchester
SB2
SB2
SB2
Exeter Regional Coop
Enfield
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Epsom
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Fall Mountain Regional
SB2
SB2
SB2
Goffstown
SB2
SB2
SB2
Exeter
SB2
SB2
SB2
Governor Wentworth Regional
SB2
SB2
SB2
Goffstown
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hampstead
SB2
SB2
SB2
Grafton
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hampton
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hampstead
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hampton Falls
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hampton
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hillsboro-Deering Coop
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hooksett
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hudson
SB2
SB2
SB2
Hudson
SB2
SB2
SB2
John Stark Regional
SB2
SB2
SB2
Kearsarge Regional
SB2
SB2
Keene
SB2
Lebanon
Litchfield
Kensington
Kingston
SB2
Litchfield
Littleton
Londonderry
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
HB141
HB141
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
HB141
HB141
HB141
Littleton
SB2
SB2
SB2
Merrimack
SB2
SB2
SB2
Londonderry
SB2
SB2
SB2
Milford
SB2
SB2
SB2
Lyndeborough
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Mascenic Regional
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Mascoma Valley Regional
SB2
SB2
SB2
Milton
New Ipswich
Newmarket
Newton
HB141
HB141
HB141
Merrimack
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Milford
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Milton
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Monadnock Regional
SB2
SB2
SB2
New Boston
SB2
SB2
SB2
Newfound Area
SB2
SB2
SB2
Newmarket
SB2
SB2
North Hampton
Orange
SB2
Pelham
Plaistow
SB2
SB2
Rye
Salem
SB2
HB141
HB141
HB141
SB2
SB2
Sandown
SB2
SB2
SB2
Newport
North Hampton
SB2
SB2
SB2
Seabrook
SB2
SB2
SB2
Oyster River Coop
SB2
SB2
SB2
Sunapee
SB2
SB2
Pelham
SB2
SB2
Wakefield
SB2
SB2
Raymond
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Weare
SB2
SB2
SB2
Rumney
Winchester
SB2
SB2
SB2
Rye
Wolfeboro
SB2
SB2
SB2
Salem
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Sanborn Regional
SB2
SB2
SB2
Seabrook
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Wakefield
SB2
SB2
Weare
SB2
SB2
Sunapee
Timberlane Regional
SB2
White Mountains Regional
Winchester
SB2
SB2
SB2
SB2
Windham
SB2
SB2
SB2
Winnacunnett Coop
SB2
SB2
SB2
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2. Dahl, Robert A. & Tufte, E. R., Size and Democracy, Stanford
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