Registrars, Town Clerk Prep For Big Budget Turnout

By John Voket

Town Clerk Cindy Simon, and Registrars of Voters Karin Aurelia and LeReine Frampton are cautiously optimistic that local taxpayers will break from tradition and turn out in force to vote in next Tuesday’s annual budget referendum. The proposal, which totals $102,232,877, will go before voters for consideration in a referendum Tuesday, April 24, with polls open from 6 am to 8 pm at the Newtown Middle School.

Ms Frampton said her office has stocked 8,000 machine ballots, and if that stock is exhausted, poll workers will use absentee ballot forms and hand count the results after polls close. Those who did not participate in last November’s general election will be voting for the first time on new optical scanning voting machines, which Newtown received as part of a pilot program last year through the Secretary of the State’s office.

The registrar said that the new voting system should in no way intimidate or prevent taxpayers from participating in the referendum.

“If you make a mistake, simply go to the moderator’s table in the front corner of the Middle School gym for a replacement ballot,” Ms Frampton wrote in a release. “You must trade in your original ballot in order to get a new one.”

Ms Frampton said with the general election as a training ground, she is not anticipating the new equipment or procedures will cause any delays.

“It doesn’t take long at all,” she said.

Meanwhile, staffers at the town clerk’s office indicate traffic for absentee ballots has been light this week. But Ms Simon is holding special Saturday hours this weekend from 9 am to noon exclusively to accommodate those who want to vote by absentee ballot.

A release from Ms Simon detailed the criteria for voting by absentee ballot. Any qualified person who meets any of the following criteria may vote by absentee ballot: 1) active service in the Armed Forces, 2) absence from the town during all the hours of voting, 3) illness, 4) physical disability, 5) religious tenets which forbid secular activity on the day of the referendum or 6) duties as a referendum official at a polling place other than your own during all the hours of voting.

Ms Simon said qualified taxpayers may obtain an absentee ballot by applying at the town clerk’s office in person or by providing an appropriate designee:  1) a person caring for you because of your illness, including but not limited to a licensed physician or a registered practical nurse, 2) a member of your family, 3) a police officer in the municipality in which you reside or 4) a registrar of voters or deputy registrar of voters in the municipality in which you reside. 

Absentee ballots can be returned to the town clerk by mail or designee before the closing of the polls on referendum day, 8 pm, April 24.

Those planning to turn out in person to cast their budget vote next Tuesday will be mixing with buses and parents dropping off students at the middle school. While the polling area is sanctioned off from the school community for the duration of the referendum, Ms Frampton issued the following guidelines, hoping voters and parents will all cooperate to make both the school and voting activities transpire in a smooth manner.

“Parents — if your child can’t take the bus they will be dropped off behind the cafeteria,” the release states. “[Students] will enter the back entrance to the cafeteria — they will not be able to get dropped off in the front and they will not be allowed to enter the gym — the bus is really the best thing for that day.”

Voters are asked to use the driveway closest to the Wachovia Bank because the front horseshoe drive at the middle school is closed. Handicapped voters are asked to use new designated parking spots in front of the gym, the release said.

Ms Frampton reminds voters that until the polls close, they are asked to enter the polling area just once, to cast a budget ballot. Only registered voters and qualified taxpayers can fill out and cast ballots, and voters must leave after completing the process.

 “You cannot gather in the polling place or in the 75-foot [mandated buffer zone] outside the polls,” Ms Frampton wrote. “After 8 pm anyone wishing to hear the results may enter the polling place.”

Attendees are asked to silence cell phones and refrain from any discussions while poll workers are conducting the readings or they may be asked to leave. 

“Accuracy is very important and quiet is essential,” Ms Frampton wrote. In addition, the registrars have instructed poll workers to not assist any voter who comes to the checker station using a cell phone.