To the editor:
An important source of income has appeared for Peterborough, a town with approximately 5,167 registered voters. Only 735 people, or 14.2 percent, voted in the last town election, and only about 60 people, or 1.1 percent, attended Town Meeting. To put this differently, 4,432 registered voters did not vote in the last election, and 5,107 did not attend Town Meeting.
If a fine of $50 resulted from failure to cast a ballot, the town would have made $221,600. And even if a trivial fine of $10 resulted from failure to attend Town Meeting, the town would have made $51,070. People with medical or other documented excuses would be exempt, but there’s no reason to think that 4,000 people had medical excuses, and added together, the fines would have brought the town of Peterborough $272,670. And all this in just one election!
The opportunity is too great to ignore. Collection could easily be managed – the fine would be added to the property tax, and if someone in a rental property failed to vote, the landlord would add the fine to the rent. This would not impact the elderly, as most of the elderly never fail to vote. Nor would there be much objection to the proposal. The people with little interest in town affairs don’t attend the town meetings where such things are decided, and they don’t read the Ledger-Transcript.
The objection would come when the fine was levied, but by then it would be too late. And the proposal would most certainly be approved. The only people with a say in the matter would be the voters.
Liz Thomas
Peterborough