WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town is prepared to serve voters on election day next month but still hoping that it will not have to serve too many of them.

 

At Monday's Select Board meeting, Town Manager Jason Hoch told the board that one statistical hurdle for the June 23 balloting has been cleared.

 

"The regional operations center has secured protective equipment for all the communities in the region for election workers," Hoch said. "That, luckily, is not an issue we had to solve on our own. The operations center took care of the region in one shot."

 

Meanwhile, the town still is encouraging voters to apply for a mail-in ballot so they can fulfill their civic duty, make a choice in the one contested race for a town office on the ballot and avoid potentially exposing poll workers to the COVID-19 virus on election day.

 

Hoch reported that as of Monday evening, the town had received 143 applications for ballots and had sent ballots to all applicants. Seventeen voters had completed and returned their ballots already -- six weeks before election day.

 

Last year, 953 voters went to the poll for the May election.

 

The town has hard-copy applications for the ballot available in boxes at Town Hall and at the Harper Center on Church Street.

 

"If you get the one at Town Hall, bring a pen with you, fill it out and drop it off right there," Hoch said.

 

What it will not be doing is mailing ballots to voters who don't request them.

 

Hoch pointed out that the ballots, which are sent in oversized envelopes, are not cheap for towns to distribute. And Andy Hogeland said it is a matter of discussion at the state level whether to continue the current practice of requiring voters to request a ballot on a form signed under penalty of perjury or to simply mail ballots to all registered voters.

 

"The one view is if you [mail them to all without requests], you've made it easier for a large number of people to vote, but you've lost control of your ballots," Hogeland said. "That's why it's a debate."

 

Hoch said it's likely the enabling legislation that allowed mail-in voting for voters who are going to be in town on election day (as opposed to the conventional "absentee" ballot) would be repeated for the September primary.

 

"And hopefully some additional level of activity at Town Hall will be allowed by then as well," Hoch said. "One thing that has been discussed is more early voting days and hours. The advantage of in-person early voting is that it can be pretty easily staggered. You can spread a couple of hundred people over the course of business hours in a week.

 

"The concentration of people on election day is the biggest risk factor."

 

The Select Board has agreed to assess the number of early ballots and revisit at a later date the idea of setting reduced hours for balloting on the June 23.