(Jan. 20, 2026) – The Ayer Select Board voted 2-0 to open the warrant for the Annual Town Meeting on April 27, 2026. Here are the dates associated with the meeting:
April 2, 2026: Deadline for all warrant articles (by noon).
April 2, 2026: Deadline for all citizen’s petitions (by noon).
The warrant will be officially posted by Friday, April 10, 2026.
The Select Board votes to recommend the warrant articles and approves the Annual Town Meeting warrant. The Finance Committee makes recommendations on financial articles. Meanwhile, residents can also bring forward a citizen’s petition by gathering 10 signatures.
We brought forward a citizen petition. At the April 28, 2025 Annual Town Meeting, Ayer residents voted 68-23 in favor of this petition, which asked the Select Board to “consider, discuss and review the idea of implementing electronic voting devices for in-person voting at Annual Town Meeting and Special Town Meeting, then vote to make a recommendation to the Town Moderator.”
The Select Board discussed this on Sept. 16, 2025 and they were not supportive of this. There has been no subsequent action. As we noted, we were the citizen petitioner and the Select Board also chose not to add our feedback to the public meeting minutes. We decided to start our community news project in October. And this experience was one reason, but not the only reason; we have a genuine interest in sharing community news.
Going forward, we may cover the topic of electronic voting devices at local Town Meetings as part of our community news project. But with this article, our goal is to let residents know the Annual Town Meeting warrant has been opened. We just mention the citizen petition as a footnote in case you wondered what happened.
This is a good time to start following if you have an interest in the Annual Town Meeting process because the first draft of the town budget has just been filed. There will be revisions. Some of the articles may also be shared at Select Board meetings as they are added to the meeting warrant over the next few weeks.
We are also sharing a link to our article on the Annual Town Election on May 12. Nomination papers are now available for those interested in running for a town office.