The official ballot vote, or SB2, debate will continue in Candia as a citizen’s petition is proposing the change for the school district next year.

More than 60 percent of voters last year approved the switch to SB2 for town affairs. The town’s first run at SB2 encapsulates the SB2 debate. Only 77 residents attended the deliberative session of Town Meeting, at which all the money proposals can be amended for a final vote on election day. The turnout paled in comparison to that for traditional Town Meetings in years past, when hundreds of residents were the norm.

Yet the number of people actually voting on the town’s financial affairs this year will likely skyrocket, as residents won’t have to sit through a daylong meeting to make their vote count. School board member Ed Caito said he’s torn on the SB2 issue.

“The idea of more people voting is good – that’s democracy,” he said. “But how informed will the voters be when they head into the voting booth?”

Caito said his biggest fear about SB2 is that poor attendance at annual meetings means fewer voters participate in discussions of the actual issues. “There’s not going to be a medium to access people,” he said.

Caito’s fear seems justified based on recent SB2 deliberative sessions of School District Meetings attended by The Hooksett Banner.

In Hooksett, a town with three times the population of Candia, just over 100 people turned out to a deliberative session of School District Meeting that had several controversial warrant articles. In Epsom, 22 of the 46 people in the room were bound to be there either by their office or profession. In Allenstown, a mere 18 voters – including school board members – attended a school deliberative session that adjourned in less than an hour.

If SB2 passes for the school district, said Caito, he imagines the board would have to get more creative in trying to reach voters through things like group e-mails, letters to the editor, direct mailings, community forums and posters.

“We would have to do it all,” he said, “and that’s at a cost.”

For Candia School Board member Ingrid Byrd, the SB2 issue is simple, “for a very simple reason,” she said. “If you take people’s taxes, they have a right to vote,” Byrd said.

That goes for people like the elderly or those with health problems who may not physically be able to sit through an hours-long meeting on a given Saturday in March, she said. Byrd said her theory also applies to people who, for example, are vacationing in Florida during March and need an absentee ballot or for truck drivers whose jobs demand they be on the road during the annual School District Meeting.

“I supported SB2 10 years ago,” said Byrd. “People have a right to vote and that’s all there is to it.”

Byrd questioned town officials who oppose SB2, and said voters may be more informed that other elected officials may perceive.

“If the (voters) aren’t well enough informed to vote on their taxes, then they’re not well enough informed to vote for their town officials,” she said.

Candia School Board Chairman Karen Smith said her own past experiences at annual school and town meetings make her question the switch to SB2. “For me, (Town Meeting) helps me to understand the issues better so I can be a more informed voter,” she said.

Smith said she’s heard tales from nearby towns about annual declines in attendance at deliberative sessions, and said she’s also heard the trend is for voters in the first year of SB2 to reject most every proposal put before them.

“That’s pretty scary to me,” she said. “Is it because people don’t have all the information, or because they’re really that unhappy?”

Resident Viktor Nafranowicz, who circulated the petition last year that brought SB2 to the town side, also circulated the school petition. He declined comment.

Sixty percent of the votes on Election Day, March 13, are needed for the change to SB2.