Town meeting

The town meeting "was the original and protean vessel of local authority."[12] The early meetings were informal, with all men in town likely participating.[13] Even when it did not fully exercise it, "the power of the town meeting knew no limit."[14] Town meeting

created principles to regulate taxation and land distribution; it bought land for town use and forbade the use of it forever to those who could not pay their share within a month; it decided the number of pines each family could cut from the swamp and which families could cover their house with clapboard. The men who went to that town meeting hammered out the abstract principles under which they would live and regulated the most minute details of their lives. The decisions they made then affected the lives of their children and grandchildren.[15]

Town meeting often had a reputation for being "active, suspicious, contradictory, and cantankerous,"[16] but it was well regarded by others.[lower-alpha 1]

In 1692, the Great and General Court declared that final authority on bylaws rested with town meetings and not selectmen.[19] Two years later, in 1694, the General Court took authority to appoint assessors from selectmen and gave it to town meetings.[19] An act of the colonial legislature gave town meeting the right to elect its own moderators in 1715, but this had already been in practice for several years in towns such as Dedham.[19][20]

A colony law required all voters to be church members until 1647, though it may not have been enforced.[14] The law changed in 1647, requiring voters to be above 24 years of age.[21] The colony added a new requirement that a man must own taxable property with a value of at least 20 pounds in 1658 and increased that sum to 80 pounds in 1670.[14] The 1670 law had a grandfather clause allowing all those who previously were qualified to keep the franchise.[21] In 1691, the property requirement was lowered back to 20 pounds.[19]

In provincial elections, only church members could vote.[22] The number continued to fall from there.[22] While in many respects Massachusetts society resembled England, the franchise was more widespread in the colony than it was in the mother country, as were the powers of local elected officials.[23]

Open town meeting is the form of town meeting in which all registered voters of a town are eligible to vote, together acting as the town's legislature. Town Meeting is typically held annually in the spring, often over the course of several evenings, but there is also provision to call additional special meetings. Open town meeting is direct democracy, while its alternatives, representative town meeting and town council, are representative democracy.

It is a form of government typical of smaller municipalities in the New England region of the United States. In Massachusetts, towns with fewer than 6,000 residents must adopt the open town meeting form of government.[24] Massachusetts towns with 6,000 or more residents may adopt either open town meeting or the representative town meeting form of government.[25]

The select board summons the town meeting into existence by issuing the warrant, which is the list of items—known as articles—to be voted on, with descriptions of each article.

The Moderator presides over the meeting, making sure that the town's chosen rules of parliamentary procedure are followed, judging the results of voice votes or shows of hands and counting votes that are too close to be judged by eye or ear. The Finance Committee, often called the Advisory Committee, makes recommendations on articles dealing with money and often drafts the proposed budget. The Town Clerk serves as the clerk of the meeting by recording its results. Town Counsel may make legal recommendations on any articles of the warrant, to ensure town meeting is acting lawfully.

Massachusetts towns having at least 6,000 residents may adopt a representative town meeting system through the normal charter change process in the State Legislature. Representative Town Meetings function largely the same as an Open Town Meeting except that not all registered voters can vote. The townspeople instead elect Town Meeting Members by precinct to represent them and to vote on the issues for them. Before it became a city in 2018, Framingham, which at the time was the largest town in the Commonwealth by population, had 216 representatives in Town Meeting, twelve from each precinct.

An annual town meeting is held in the spring and may also be known as the annual budget meeting. Towns were once required to hold their annual town meetings between February 1 and May 31, but Chapter 85 of the Acts of 2008 extended this window of time to June 30. (Town fiscal years start on July 1.) At this meeting, the town budgets for the new fiscal year and takes care of any outstanding housekeeping items from the current fiscal year. It may also vote on non-budgetary warrant articles, including the town's general and zoning bylaws.

An article may be placed on the warrant by the Selectmen, sometimes at the request of town departments, or by a petition signed by at least ten registered voters of the town.

Special town meetings' may be held whenever necessary, usually to deal with financial or other pertinent issues that develop between annual town meetings. They function the same as an annual town meeting, only the number of signatures required on a petition rises to 100. While the Selectmen generally call such a meeting, voters may call one through petition, and the number of signatures required on a petition to call a special town meeting is 200 or 20% of the registered voters, whichever number is lower. The selectmen have 45 days from the date of receiving such a petition to hold a special town meeting.

Traditional town meeting is held annually on the second Tuesday of March to choose town officers, approve a town budget, and approve large contracts. Town selectmen can call special town meetings throughout the year as needed, although these must be approved by a judge if they affect the budget. State law prohibits town meetings from being held on the biennial election day in November.

State law lets the town moderator adjourn a long-running meeting and reconvene it at a later date to finish the town's business.

Any town meeting or adjournment thereof must have its time and place published with three days' notice, along with the warrant specifying each issue to be decided. Town meeting can amend the warrant articles before voting on them, and can conduct non-binding discussions of other issues, but cannot make other binding votes without this notice to town voters.

Attendance wanes over the course of a town meeting, and a traditional tactic was to re-vote after many on the opposite side had gone home. In 1991, the state enacted RSA 40:10, giving town meeting members the right to bar reconsideration of a specified vote (or any "action...which involves the same subject matter"). If a town meeting does not bar reconsideration and later does vote to reconsider a decision, the issue can be taken up only at an adjourned session at least one week later.

Official ballot referenda, or the SB 2[28] format, provides that town voters make binding decisions not at town meeting but by secret ballot in the municipal election. To adopt SB 2, or to revert to traditional town meetings, a question to that effect on the municipal ballot must win a three-fifths majority. This format was instituted by the state legislature in 1995 because of concerns that modern lifestyles had made it difficult for people to attend traditional town meetings. In 2019, however, the law was changed so that the three-fifths majority would have to occur at town meeting itself: The town meeting would have to vote to remove its own final decisions to the municipal ballot.[29]

Under SB 2, a first session, called a "Deliberative Session", is held about a month prior to the town election. This session is similar in many ways to the traditional town meeting. However, unlike the town meeting, while the wording and dollar amounts of proposed ballot measures may be amended, no actual voting on the merits of the proposals takes place.

Deliberative sessions are less well attended, in bodies that have adopted SB 2, than are plenary town meetings in bodies that have not adopted SB 2, as their decisions are not final. However, the final vote by secret ballot attracts more voters than town meetings do because of the shorter time requirement, and absentees can vote.

Deliberative sessions have been charged with "sabotaging" the intent of a ballot question; for example, changing a warrant article, "To see if the Town will raise and appropriate (amount) for (purpose)" to merely read, "To see." A 2011 law[30] barred deliberative sessions from deleting the subject matter of a warrant article. In 2016, petitioners in Exeter submitted an article to place on the ballot an advisory "vote of no confidence" in a school official, and the deliberative session removed the word "no".[31]

The second session, held on a set election day, is when issues such as the town's budget and other measures, known as warrant articles, are voted upon. When adopting SB 2, towns or school districts may hold elections on the second Tuesday in March, the second Tuesday in April, or the second Tuesday in May. The election dates may be changed by majority vote. If a vote is taken to approve the change of the local elections, the date becomes effective the following year.

In 2002, according to the University of New Hampshire Center for Public Policy studies, 171 towns in New Hampshire had traditional town meeting, while 48 had SB 2. Another 15 municipalities, most of them incorporated cities, had no annual meeting. The study found that 102 school districts had traditional town meeting, 64 had SB 2 meeting and 10 had no annual meeting.

Because traditional-meeting communities tend to be smaller, only one third of the state's population was governed by traditional town meetings in 2002 and only 22 percent by traditional school-district meetings.

The Official Ballot Town Council is a variant form of the Town Council, in which certain items are to be placed on the ballot to be voted on by the registered voters. This process mimics the SB 2 process, except that the Town Council makes the determination of what items will go on the ballot.

The Budgetary Town Meeting is a variation of the Open Meeting, but only the annual town operating budget as presented by the governing body can be voted on by the registered voters. When a town charter provides for a Budgetary Town Meeting it also must establish the procedures for the transfer of funds among various departments, funds, accounts and agencies as may be necessary during the year.

State law (RSA 49-D:3 (paragraph III)) gives the alternative of a representative town meeting, similar to that of a town council, in which voters elect a small number of residents to act as the legislative body in their stead. Representative town meeting follows the same procedure as traditional town meetings, except they cannot decide matters that state law requires to be placed on the official town ballot. Representative town meeting is selected by a town charter, which may require additional matters to go onto the town ballot.

As of 2006, this form of government is not used in any town or school district in New Hampshire.

Moderators are elected to two-year terms on even years in towns and are elected in city wards at every other city election. The moderator presides over town meetings, regulates their business, prescribes rules of procedure, decides questions of order, and declares the outcome of each vote. Town meeting voters can override the moderator's procedural rulings.

The moderator also has the authority to postpone and reschedule the town meeting (or deliberative session, if SB 2 is in effect) to another reasonable date, place, and time certain in the case of a weather emergency in which the moderator reasonably believes the roads to be hazardous or unsafe.

The 2017 municipal election was preceded by a large snowstorm, and the Secretary of State clarified that this statutory authority does not extend to postponing elections, but moderators in several towns did so anyway.[32] In 2019, the NH General Court passed, and the Governor signed, SB 104, which created a procedure to postpone elections. It empowers the Town moderator, based on National Weather Service reports and after consultations with other officials and the Secretary of State, to postpone elections.[33] As stated in at the beginning of the bill, it "provides for the postponement of town, city, village, and school district elections in the event of a winter storm warning, blizzard warning, or ice storm warning. The bill also allows any person to vote absentee in the event of such a warning if he or she has concerns for his or her safety."[34]

Moderators are elected to one-year terms. The moderator's duties include reviewing the warrant (published agenda) for town meeting, presiding over town meeting, deciding questions of order, making public declarations of each vote passed, and prescribing rules of the proceeding.[41]

Some small municipalities of Spain operate under a town meeting system called a Concejo abierto ("open council") that dates from the middle ages. The Spanish constitution allows municipalities with fewer than 100 people, as well as municipalities that have traditionally used the system, to operate under an open council.[44]

The best-known example of the Spanish town meeting system of government was found in the Middle Ages in the Basque Country of northern Spain. Known as the anteiglesia (literally "in front of the church" from the Latin ante - and not anti) all the residents of a town would meet outside the door of the largest church and vote on local matters. They would also elect a sindico to represent them in the regional assembly. The village or town was divided into cofradías, which dealt with day-to-day administration in each of the town's parishes.

The system was revived in the municipality of Iurreta, Biscay in 1990.

Town meetings are the usual legislative body of the smaller municipalities of Switzerland, that is of approximately 90% of all Swiss municipalities. The meetings are usually held twice a year. At the cantonal level, some regions also hold Landsgemeinde, annual meetings for deciding on legislative referendums. In the 17th century this was common across the region, but in the 21st century the meetings continue to exist only in the cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus.