CPA Freetown and Canton Election Results

Apr. 4, 2012: The effort to adopt CPA in Freetown came up 21 votes shy of victory in the April 2nd local election; the final tally was 337 no to 316 yes. CPA advocates point to perhaps two factors that contributed to the final results. Local questions are always positioned at the end of the ballot, after the candidates for local office. In Freetown's case, that pushed the CPA question to the back side, which meant voters had to flip over the ballot to vote on CPA. In all likelihood this was the main reason that a high number of blanks (53) were recorded on the CPA question. In addition, there was almost a year between the June 2011 Town Meeting approval of CPA and the April 2, 2012 election, an unusually long period of time. Despite those factors, Freetown CPA advocates were encouraged by the close vote and are reviewing their options for the future.

Voters in Canton also turned down CPA adoption on April 3rd, with 753 votes against and 539 in favor.