Hanover

I am writing to explain the status of Hanover’s 2020 Town Meeting.

As everyone knows, the meeting is set for the first or second Tuesday in May each year. This year, it became apparent in March that our Town Meeting would present a legitimate threat to the public, as it was a public gathering that would exceed a couple of hundred individuals, in both the balloting and business meeting portions. With the authority given to me by statute, and the interpretation from New Hampshire’s secretary of state and attorney general that the COVID-19 threat represented a disability, I authorized the postponement of the Town Meeting to June 23.

In mid-May, I reviewed the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from epidemiologists and physicians in our own community, and concluded, again, that an in-person Town Meeting on June 23 was still dangerous.

This is a disease that causes people to die alone, to drown in their own fluids, their arteries to seize with clotting. It causes a syndrome in children that, while rare, is shocking to see. Our Town Meeting attendees and our ballot clerks and staff skew older.

Holding our traditional Town Meeting as we usually do in the Hanover High School gym is not a risk I was willing to impose on our population.

Therefore, I petitioned the secretary of state and the attorney general for permission to hold an electronic business meeting via Zoom. The town staff worked every angle to address potential concerns, such as ensuring that only registered voters could vote and that options existed for single-device or no-device households. Our experience has been that Zoning Board of Adjustment, Selectboard and other meetings held via Zoom have actually had increased public attendance over in-person meetings, so this seemed like a feasible way to ensure participation by those who, rightly, felt reasonable risk with an in-person meeting or who were under quarantine restrictions — such as our residents at Kendal and other elder care facilities.

On June 11, we learned from the secretary of state and the attorney general that our petition could not be approved. The state’s legal staff was very sympathetic, but the reason goes back to the New Hampshire Constitution, Part 2, Article 32, which provides that an eligible voter must be “present” to vote.

This constitutional requirement was interpreted by the state Supreme Court in “Opinion of the Justices, 44 N.H. 633 (1863),” a Civil War-era case, to mean that absentee balloting was barred by the constitution. In essence, the state constitution barred New Hampshire soldiers serving in the Civil War from casting absentee ballots, and it required an amendment to our constitution to permit absentee balloting.

Despite our best arguments that voters would be “present” virtually and the meeting would thus conform to the constitution, the state’s position was that the amendment had to be interpreted strictly: The amendment permitting absentee balloting addressed only the balloting portion of Town Meeting, not the business portion.

This left us less than two weeks to re-plan for a Town Meeting that was constitutionally sound and reasonably safe for voters.

I provided my recommendations to the Selectboard and, at its very next meeting, on Monday, it moved ahead with an in-person Town Meeting using a drive-in format.

We will be hosting it July 7, weather permitting, beginning at 7 p.m., at Dewey Field, with the assistance of Dartmouth College. Space will be made available for walkers and bikers who wish to attend without a vehicle, provided they comply with our 6-foot social distancing and masking requirements. These requirements are for the good of all voters and are essential to making an in-person meeting as safe as can reasonably be managed given the risk that is all around us.

The balloting portion will also be held on July 7, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., under a tent outside at Dewey Field, to ensure the protection of our poll worker volunteers.

For those who have expressed concerns that the town is suppressing the vote in some fashion, please have patience. Trust me when I say that I understand the impulse, given the issues we’ve had with elections in our country over the last four years, and the efforts of some jurisdictions to make voting difficult. I feel outrage about those conditions as deeply as you do. Please know that, as moderator, I control our polling stations at local, state and federal elections. My personal view, which I implement as your elected moderator, is that every eligible Hanover voter who wants to vote in an election should be able to do so, and that as town officials, employees and volunteers, we must exercise the power at our disposal to make sure every effort is made to make that happen — from registration on down to check-in, polling station flow and voting.

That principle is best captured by our signage during the last election, which read: “If for any reason you have been turned away unable to vote, please find the moderator or the town clerk.”

From my elected office down through every town employee and volunteer, that is our operating approach. Please rest assured that this is the principle that has motivated our scheduling efforts for Town Meeting, and will motivate our efforts for the upcoming state primary and federal elections.

Finally, I am urging every Hanover voter to obtain an absentee ballot for the balloting portion of Town Meeting, as well as for the upcoming state primary and federal elections. Absentee voting minimizes your risk, and keeps our town officers, employees and volunteers as safe as possible.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. We will see this through together, as a community.

Jeremy Eggleton serves as Hanover’s town moderator.