3 November, 2023
Town Manager Norman Khumalo and Town Clerk Connor Degan are pleased to report that the Town of Hopkinton will utilize time-saving electronic voting for the first time at Special Town Meeting later this month.
When residents vote yea or nay on Nov. 13, there will be no more delays for manual hand counting of votes. The town has contracted with Meridia Interactive Solutions to provide Audience Response System Keypads for all voters. The easy-to-use keypads feature:
Accessibility: Voters will no longer have to stand during lengthy hand-counted votes. Additionally, each clicker has color-coded tactile Yes/No buttons with no touchscreens or confusing navigation menus. Voters with visual impairments who require a device with Braille can contact the Town Clerk's office (508-497-9710) or Town Manager's office (508-497-9701) prior to the Special Town Meeting to make arrangements for a specialized device.
Anonymity: The clickers do not have logins, usernames or passwords. All devices are auto-configured and only given to voters at check-in. Votes are completely anonymous.
Security: The Audience Response System Keypads are not connected to the internet and communicate with a base station via a secure wireless frequency.
"The Meridia voting clickers will enable our Town Meeting voters to have confidence that their votes will be counted and that their valuable time will be well-spent on meetings and votes that are quick, efficient and accurate," explains Town Clerk Degan. "By turning to a system that is trusted by dozens of other Town Meetings, Hopkinton will be implementing an easy-to-use system that will allow us to run better meetings and take more accurate vote counts."
The same Meridia system is being used by more than 60 other Massachusetts municipalities and Town Meetings including Bellingham, Berlin, Boylston, Carlisle, Concord, Dedham, Grafton, Lee, Leicester, Littleton, Mendon, Medway, Rehoboth, Rutland, Stow, Sterling, Sturbridge, Sudbury, Wenham and Uxbridge. It is also used for voting by the U.S. House of Representatives and the New Hampshire General Court.
The technology is endorsed by the Massachusetts Town Clerks Association and the New England Association of City and Town Clerks.
The Town Clerk's office will have two open office hour demonstrations of the clickers:
Monday, Nov. 6 at 2 p.m., Hopkinton Senior Center, 28 Mayhew St.
Tuesday, Nov. 7 at 5 p.m. at Town Hall, 18 Main St.
For more information, visit the Meridia webpage dedicated to New England Town Meetings at following link:
https://www.meridiaars.com/electronic-voting-system-in-massachusetts-to…
Hopkinton Town Meeting Electronic Voting System from John Guilfoil Public Relations on Vimeo.
