Merrimack Votes2021 - About Me
This site originated as merrimackvotes.org which was founded in 2007 by a group of residents who realized that the election process within the Town may be unfamiliar to residents.
The School District, Town and Villiage District have protocols, procedures and state RSA's that must be followed. It is important for the voters to educate themselves on these in order to cast an informed vote.
That is where the merrimackvotes.org site came in - and where this site hopes to continue.
Their and my goals were and are:
- Educate residents about the community's government structure
- Educate residents about the budget processs for Town , School and Village District
- Provide accurate information to the residents on the budgets, community issues and candidates
- Identify ways to get involved to ensure that the governing bodies conduct business in the manner the governing body desires
- Encourage our residents to exercise their voting rights at both the deliberative sessions and the polls
And finally, merrimackvotes.org never did, nor do I endorse or give preference to a specific candidate or article.
I host, maintain, and update the MerrimackVotes.org website through the 2012 election year.
I am an assistant moderator for the Town of Merrimack and also part of the Merrimack Police Department Citizen Volunteer team.
In 2021, I chose to put it back online (under vote2021.merrimacknh.org) to help voters with the large number of candidates for Town Council.
The Villiage District Elections have already taken place, has have the Town and School deliberative sessions so this is a stripped down version of what the used to provide.
With the merrimackvotes.org site, when ever any questions relating to controversial decisions for this website, the original founders are consulted prior to moving forward. That isn't happening this year. I think I know of one of the Founders still being around.
The biggest example of controversy is when a candidate's response contains inaccurate information. The big question comes, inaccurate according to whom? So, the responses stay, intact, as sent, with only grammatical corrections made.
That battle was back in 2007. 2008 was pretty smooth.
When it comes to information about articles, the source is the governing body. So, for Town articles, the Town owns the data. Debates can be held on other boards/locations.