JAY — Absentee ballot applications are available for the annual town meeting referendum on April 28.
Officials are moving forward with voting but acknowledge restrictions remain in place for the COVID-19 pandemic, which may delay voting.
“We still have a month before our meeting and everything that we needed to have done prior to the election has been done so, if the restrictions are lifted by then, we could hold the vote,” Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere said Friday.
“We will continue to review this going forward but, based on the changes approved by the Legislature, if we need to move the date out further, we can continue to use the same ballots and can just hold any absentee ballots that we receive until the final meeting date,” she said.
If it gets closer to April 28 and restrictions remain in place, the Select Board could delay the town meeting date without too much difficulty, she said.
Voters will consider a proposed $5.3 million municipal budget for 2020-21 and elect municipal, school and water district officials at the meeting.
Regional School Unit 73 has postponed a vote on its budget until after the restrictions are lifted. A validation referendum was scheduled for April 28.
Absentee ballot applications are available on the town’s website Jay-Maine.org or Jay’s Facebook page. Voters can also call the Town Office at 207-897-6785 to have a ballot application mailed to them, or they can print and complete the application and mail it to the Town of Jay, 340 Main St, Jay, ME 04239, or fax it to 1-207-897-9420 or email it to jdepclerk@jay-maine.org. The application must be signed by the voter.
Absentee ballots will be available until 5 p.m. April 23. After that, voters will need to qualify for a special circumstance.
The deadline for submitting ballots is April 28, Town Clerk Ronda Palmer said.
The Legislature passed an emergency COVID-19 bill on March 18 for 2020. It allows municipal officers to postpone a municipal secret ballot election by posting a notice in a conspicuous public location at least two days prior to the election. The notice must either indicate the new date of the election or indicate that the municipal officers will schedule it at a date to be determined.
Ballots already printed for that election may be reused for the rescheduled election, despite including the wrong date,, and absentee ballots already cast for the election must be held by the clerk and processed on the rescheduled election date, according to a municipal notice provided to Jay by Preti Flaherty lawyers Stephen E.F. Langsdorf and Kristin M. Collins, who are based in Augusta.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
