RTM group seeks to rescind vote on $500K election grant
GREENWICH — The Representative Town Meeting’s new electronic voting system worked as expected in its first two outings, but a small group of members continues to voice concerns about a vote taken last month using the new system.
The vote was on whether to accept a controversial grant — which passed at the time. But some RTM members allege there were issues with the vote and the RTM’s Labor Contracts
Committee has submitted a motion to rescind it.
The motion is on the agenda for the March 13 RTM meeting.
Depending on how a challenge is brought and whether it succeeds, the RTM could enter an era where challenges to vote outcomes are more common.
The RTM used the new electronic voting system for several votes at its Jan. 17 meeting, including a vote where members narrowly accepted a $500,000 grant for the town’s registrars of voters. The grant vote, known as Item 10, passed by a margin of 104 to 101, with five abstentions.
The grant comes from a Chicago-based nonprofit, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, and the funding would be used to improve election infrastructure in town.
Some RTM members and residents want to reject the grant because Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg previously made a major donation to CTCL. The fear is the nonprofit will influence the outcomes of local elections, but in grant documents submitted to the RTM, the CTCL said it will never require recipients to implement specific policies or touch live ballots.
Meridia Interactive Solutions, the company that makes and supervises use of the RTM’s electronic voting system, said in January the system worked as designed and that “operator error” was likely to blame for any miscast votes.
“Following an exhaustive review of the voting at Tuesday evening’s RTM meeting, partic
ularly with respect to the vote on the merits of Item 10 (the acceptance of the grant) as amended, I have been informed that the electronic voting system had no flaws or defects,” RTM Moderator Alexis Voulgaris wrote in a January memo.
“That does not mean, of course, that it recorded a vote from every member who was present at the meeting at the time the vote was taken, or that it recorded every vote that a member might have intended to cast when the vote was taken.”
In her statement on the vote, Voulgaris said 219 members were present for the vote, but only 210 members cast votes.
The new software system designed to tally the votes for the RTM allows for only 1 minute for a vote to be cast, and it appears some members voted too early or too late, she said.
“A member might have pushed a button before the voting window opened, or after the window closed. The member might have thought the button was pushed properly but the device never registered being activated,” Voulgaris said.
Still, dissatisfied RTM members continue to decry the new system, most recently at a recent meeting of the RTM’s Legislative and Rules Committee.
“I’m here tonight, because I’m very concerned about the integrity of the RTM,” said Republican Valerie Stauffer of District 7. “The electronic voting system is going to be a great enhancement. But to date, there are serious problems with it... The main thing is that our votes were not counted.”
Stauffer said the votes of 10 people were not counted; however, five people filed affidavits with the town clerk on the night of the vote requesting a revote in March; one has since been withdrawn.
Jenny Larkin, a freelance technology consultant working for the town clerk on the Meridia implementation, went to the meeting to address user concerns.
“I just want to go on record, as I’m here to represent this thing that is being referred to as ‘the system,’ because the facts are, the system did not fail, the system is not broken,” she said.
The RTM had been looking for a more efficient way to vote for many years, but the COVID-19 pandemic and start of hybrid meetings made the
search more pressing.
In its December meeting, the RTM voted overwhelmingly in favor of implementing the new system with 193 in favor, 9 opposed and 3 abstentions.
The new clickers were used to cast votes in both the December and January meetings and no objections were raised until the grant vote.
What happens next?
The RTM meeting on March 13 already has some members prepared to challenge the vote on Item 10.
One such challenge, specifically called a motion to rescind, has already been submitted by the RTM’s Labor Contracts Committee. The agenda for the March meeting has not been finalized yet, but assuming the LCC motion is on the call, other committees would be assigned to vote on whether or not the LLC’s motion is in good legal order.
If a motion to rescind the January vote on Item 10 is brought, then the full RTM would vote to accept or reject it. If accepted, the January vote would be nullified. If rejected, then the vote would stand and the CTCL grant would head to the First Selectman.
Moderator
Voulgaris
told the Greenwich Time that introducing the motions to rescind more regularly in the future would be bad for the functionality of the RTM.
“That would be terrible. There should be confidence that once a vote is announced, it’s final,” she said. “RTM rules even say that once the window is closed, you may not change your vote and when the vote is announced it’s final… So I do not believe that a motion to rescind serves us as a body if people want to use it to turn over a result that they don’t like.”
First Selectman Fred
Camillo could have signed off on the CTCL grant following the January vote, but chose not to at the direction of the town attorney.
“The decision not to sign it is not meant to reflect my view on the grant money but rather my desire to let this process play out in full before the RTM first,” he wrote in a Feb. 10 letter to the town.
“It is my understanding that further motions will be made regarding the vote to accept the grant at the RTM’s March meeting and I did not want to short-circuit that. Let the RTM go through its procedural
mechanism on a potential vote to rescind first,” he wrote.
Regardless of how things go at the March meeting, Voulgaris said that the electronic voting system is likely here to stay.
“I don’t foresee getting rid of Meridia or electronic voting,” she said. “I think it’s working with Meridia and just continuing to gather feedback and perfect what we’re offering. It’s about always making sure that you’re following best practices, and Meridia has confirmed that we have followed best practices.”