Selectmen want voters validated at town meetings

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BEACON FALLS — The Board of Selectmen is looking to formalize a practice of validating voters at town meetings, but whose duty it would be to check voters remains up in the air.

“Personally, I think us validating voters is just a given in the society we’re living in now,” Selectman Michael Krenesky said as the board discussed the issue at its July 8 meeting.

Historically, the town hasn’t always validated whether people are qualified to vote at a town meeting, according to officials. The practice has become more prevalent over recent years after someone asked after a town meeting how the town makes sure everyone is eligible to vote, First Selectman Christopher Bielik said.

The responsibility to check voters at a town meeting has fallen to the town’s registrars of voters.

Democratic Registrar Katherine Grace, who has been a registrar in town for over 30 years, questioned the practice last month and didn’t attend a June 5 town meeting on the 2019-20 municipal budget to check voters.

Grace has argued that state statutes don’t require registrars to validate voters at a town meeting. Grace, who has also expressed frustration with other elected officials getting raises this fiscal year but not the registrars, said registrars are dealing with more and more obligations put on them by the state. In a letter to the board, she formally requested that the board not require the registrars to perform any duties at town meetings.

“I just think every week it seems we get more and more work laid on us by the state, and I just think it’s unfair to put this on us also,” Grace told the board last week.

Town Attorney Frederick Stanek provided an opinion to the board in June that pointed to state statutes that say registrars have to complete a list of voters before a special election or referendum and “should retain a sufficient number of copies to be used by them at such election or referendum for the purpose of checking the names of those who vote …”

While the statutes don’t mention town meetings specifically, Stanek wrote his opinion is a town meeting is analogous to an election or referendum and the responsible for validating voters is the registrars.

Stanek stood by that opinion at last week’s meeting.

Grace disagreed. She said the statutes Stanek based his opinion on don’t mention town meetings. Town meetings are governed under different statutes, which don’t mention registrars, she argued in her letter.

Grace said state statutes say town meetings are administered by a moderator, who is chosen at the meeting. She said town meetings are meant to be a more informal way of voting and the town should go back to the way meetings were historically run. She said if there is a controversial issue, the selectmen can send it to a referendum for a vote.

The consensus among the board was that validating voters at town meetings would be in the town’s best interest. Stanek said the board has broad authority under state statutes and could issue a directive regarding who would check voters.

The board took no action on the issue last week. Officials plan to seek information on how other towns handle the matter. The board is expected to discuss it further at its August meeting.