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Date: 8/3/2021
NORTHAMPTON – During the Northampton Ranked Choice Voting Committee’s inaugural meeting, the committee discussed the need for its inception, named a chair and vice chair and discussed the Open Meeting Law.
To start the meeting, City Solicitor Alan Seewald said that after the Charter review back in 2019 determined that the city would look into ranked choice voting he went to the mayor and City Council to discuss putting together a committee to determine how to best establish this form of voting in Northampton.
“We went through our Charter review process back in 2019 and one of the recommendations of the committee was that we adopt ranked choice voting. I did not feel it was appropriate for me to decide how ranked choice voting would work in Northampton so I thought we should put a committee together to make a recommendation to the City Council and the mayor,” he said.
City Clerk Pamela Powers, who serves on the committee as a non-voting member, said the goal should be to have something finalized by the city’s 2023 municipal election.
“As far as this year is concerned, I do not think there is any realistic expectation that we would be able to complete any of this in time for the September preliminary and the November election so the goal I think would be to have something finalized by 2023 which would be the city’s next municipal election,” she said.
Seewald said the earliest the question could conceivably be put on a ballot is during the 2022 election.
“This is going to have to go on a ballot. The most likely thing that is going to happen is that this will go on a ballot in maybe 2022, but that all depends on the legislation moving this through their process and that is a complete unknown. Our current changes have been before the legislation for over a year,” he said.
Powers added that it would be difficult to put the question to the state ballot in 2022.
“Right now, we do not have any municipal elections in 2022, so there is a process by which we may be able to get it on a state ballot, but we have not been successful about that in the past,” she said.
After the opening discussion, committee member Bill Dwight nominated Bill Boulrice, who also served on the Charter Review Commission, to be named chair of the committee, and committee member Catherine Kay said she agreed.
“I think Bob’s role on the Charter Review Commission gives him a great perspective from which to lead this discussion, it feels like a natural continuation of that,” she said.
While he said he is not an expert on ranked choice voting, Boulrice said he is an advocate for the change.
“Gina-Louise invited me to join, she claimed I am the resident expert, but I have never made that claim. I certainly am as big an advocate for ranked choice voting as any of the overwhelming majority who appeared and gave testimony before our subcommittee,” he said.
As a member of the Charter Review Commission, Boulrice said he was hoping it would be ready for the 2021 mayoral election.
“It is a real shame that this did not come to be usable in the upcoming mayoral election because it would have been a perfect way for us to introduce it to the residents in an understandable context for them since there would be one election and the choices would be fairly straight forward,” he said.
Boulrice added that one of the primary goals of the committee should be to educate the public about ranked choice voting.
“A primary takeaway that came up during our deliberations with the charter review is however you choose to initiate ranked choice voting; voter education is a large part of it. In the New York City example there was virtually none and the bureau in charge there refused hundreds of thousands of dollars to conduct education,” he said.
After naming Boulrice the chair, the committee unanimously agreed to name Kay the vice chair.
During the meeting, Seewald also walked the committee through the various ins and outs of the Open Meeting Law, including what is included on the public record during a meeting and avoiding violations.
The Northampton Ranked Choice Voting Committee’s next scheduled meeting is on Aug. 10.