Eastham May Adopt Electronic Voting System

CapeCodOnline.com – The Colonial-era “yea” or “nay” of town meetings could be replaced by the click of a keypad if Eastham voters decide to adopt electronic voting at future town meetings.

Eastham is the first town on the Cape to form a committee to consider using devices that resemble TV remotes to record votes in seconds. These do away with hand counting, secret ballots and voice votes that date back to the Pilgrims.

Option Technologies, which rents out the equipment to many Massachusetts towns, charges from $10,000 for a small meeting to $50,000 for a town meeting with 2,000 voters, said Mark Fite, company president.

It doesn’t make sense to buy the equipment because renting comes with the technical experts who set up, maintain and take down the equipment, said Eastham Selectman Aimee Eckman, who is on the study committee.

Also, the technology could change quickly, she added.

How is it that not one town on Cape Cod has these devices yet? We are walking around with computers in our pockets but we still have to yell “yea” or “nay” at town meetings like we just walked off the Mayflower?

Oh and $50,000 to rent some T.V. remotes seems reasonable huh? It doesn’t make sense to buy them because the technology changes too fast? Are you shitting me? There are two buttons on the things, TWO! We have had this technology for like 50 years and it’s exactly the same. I repeat, they are T.V. remotes with TWO buttons.

I have an app on my phone that will tell me where the nearest liquor store is to my exact current location, guess what, it was FREE. Yet Eastham is going to rent some two button remotes for $50K? Gee I wonder why our governments are all in debt?