2015 Annual Town Election - Town Meeting Candidates

This year's Town Election is earlier than usual: Saturday, March 28th.

When it comes to Town Meeting candidates, there is precious little information available to help someone make an educated choice.

To help with that, I've listed all the candidates for Town Meeting below, with information related to attendance at Town Meeting over the previous three years. Click here to read more about the issue of attendance at Town Meeting.

Until the implementation of electronic voting last year, trying to track how members voted on issues was next to impossible, as no records were kept on how an individual voted (except in the rare case of a roll call vote).

Despite the fact that electronic voting will provide you a record of how your member votes, I believe the bigger issue is still this: Does your Town Meeting member show up?

With that in mind, I encourage everyone to take some time this year, and cast votes for those candidates you trust to actually show up and participate in Town Meeting.

Voters can pick up to four Town Meeting candidates for the 3-year seats. There are a few precincts that also need to fill vacant seats that are less than 3-years. These are noted in the Seat column.

One column shows the percent of electronic votes incumbent members cast at last year's Town Meeting. We don't cast a uniform number of votes each night, so this number won't exactly mirror attendance. I've included it because when the percentage of sessions attended is a lot higher than the percent of electronic votes cast, it might indicate that this member made a habit of leaving early most nights.

If you are curious how members voted on specific issues last year, you can find that information behind the links named Votes Utilizing Electronic Voting System on the 2014 Annual Town Meeting page on the Town's website.

You will notice that the rows below are shaded with different colors.

Gray indicates that the seat is uncontested - there are not more candidates than open seats, so without an impressive write-in campaign, these people will be elected to Town Meeting this year.

Green indicates that there are more candidates than open seats for this race.

Rows without any highlighting represent seats where no one has turned in papers and there won't be a candidate listed on the ballot for this seat.

Candidates are listed in the order they will appear on the ballot.