Board of Aldermen 2-12-2020 Page 32
So ideally what | would like is for the State to make it easier to vote, no excuse absentee ballots, extend the
deadline for doing that, maybe doing it both by mail, early voting, something like that. But until the State
does that, we in my opinion, we need to set our hours so that the people in Nashua know and can count on
that no matter when we set the election date, the times are going to be from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
The other reason that | bring this up is because at any point in time the way that our rules are now, we can
just randomly change the time of an election as long as it is 30 days beforehand. You know, if we are
setting an election, let’s say we decide as a Board next year, “Oh we only want it to be 7:00 to 7:00”.
Theoretically we could do that. Now if we put this into Ordinance, we can still do that, but it’s a lot harder.
Because now you’ve got to introduce an Ordinance, people get notice, people can debate it, they can say,
“| don’t agree with this”. And so it just puts into place a little bit more protection for the people who vote and
giving them those hours that we know Nashua uniquely needs. So that was the emphasis why | was doing
it; | want to protect people’s right to vote and | want to protect those traditional hours that we have, at least
until a point when the State can come out with something better and then we can re-address it at that time.
Alderman Jette
Thank you for that explanation. My initial thought and | have a been a voter protection attorney for over 20
years and so | have been at the polls at 5:00 in the morning until, in some cases, midnight. So | know what
a long day our poll workers put in. So when you have a Federal Election, they are busy, you know, it is
pretty steady all day long, there are some lulls but pretty steady all day long. But some of our special and
municipal elections, you know, there’s unfortunately a lot of our people don’t exercise their opportunity to
vote and the people who come after 7:00 at night are few. So | originally thought well it seems like a lot of
other towns do it 7 to 7 a lot of other commuter towns do it 7:00 to 7:00 and | thought, not being a
commuter like you, | thought that you ought to be able to get there either after 7 or before 7 at night.
But | understand your reasons and other people have said that anything we do to reduce the opportunity for
people to vote is a bad idea. So | recognize that, so | am going to vote for this. | would encourage our
State Representatives to see what can be done about making voting easier. You mentioned about the
absentee, you are right. Our rules are archaic and it ought to be easier if because of work you are not able
to get to the polls, you ought to be able to get an absentee ballot, not necessarily because you are going to
be out of town. But | will leave it to our capable State Representatives to figure that out and hopefully they
will come up with something.
Alderman Schmidt
Every year we come up with something and every year it is either vetoed or it does not pass. We try to
make it easier for people to vote and is protected apparently by historical happenings
Alderman Klee
| want to echo what Alderman Schmidt said that yes, we can put that forward. | also want to mention
something that you said about like after 7:00 we really don’t get more. Since 2016 | have been every
single year standing at the polls being an Alderman and a State Rep. | can testify and attest to the fact
that anywhere between 7:00 and 8:00 we literally have people that running into the polls because they just
picked up their kids from Day Care and so on and they are running in. They didn’t think they would make it
on time because they think the polls are closing at 7:00. And even last night and | know that was more of a
Federal Election, | was sitting in the gym when someone came in 2 minutes of eight and he was like, Did |
make it, did | make it, did | make it. So we do get those people that are rushing from work. And some
people rush from work, | work in Bedford at the VA Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts and | had to do that
horrible route 3 traffic through all of the construction and so on. | Know what it’s like to hit traffic in both
directions. If you don’t leave by a certain time, but | can’t imagine having to rush home, pick up your
children from Day Care and you’re going to be late. And I’ve seen men and women with babies in their
arms running in to vote. So | think for our residents who do commute, as well as residents who can’t leave
their children, the longer we have it, I'd like to see that we change the rules for the polls.
