Council considers eliminating municipal primary or moving filing period back

LACONIA — A handful of amendments to the city charter — including doing away with municipal primary elections — could be on the ballot come November. 

City councilors tabled an item that would have put several charter questions to a vote in November, during their regular meeting on July 14.

Most of the potential charter amendments had to do with practical questions: how much time do the employees in the clerk’s office need to file paperwork appropriately, order ballots and program the electronic ballot-counting machines ahead of an election? 

City Clerk Katie Gargano told councilors primaries are expensive, totaling around $5,000 each go around. The municipal filing period for elections is Aug. 6-15 this year, not long before the primary would crack off. She’d like councilors to consider either rolling the filing period back in future years, allowing her office the time it takes to make preparations for an election, or to zero the expense by ridding the city of primary elections altogether.

“I’d done some research to see which cities in the state have a primary. It’s currently just Laconia and Manchester and the City of Keene; everybody else does not hold a primary. It’s not required that we hold a primary,” Gargano said. “It’s costly to hold one and we don’t need to, then I just figured we could get rid of it.”

Alternatively, Gargano said pushing the filing period up one month to July could achieve the same goals. 

“We reviewed all of these with our city attorney, they didn’t have too many changes, made a couple of tweaks. I’ve also sent all of these changes off to the [New Hampshire] Department of Revenue [Administration], the Attorney General’s Office and the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office for their review,” Gargano said. “If they have anything, they’ll send a response within 45 days.”

Councilors appeared receptive to most of the practical suggestions, but apprehensive to vote on all of the items together. Several expressed their opposition to doing away with the municipal primary.

Any changes to the charter have to be voted on in the municipal election, and wouldn’t come into effect until the next year. Councilors at their meeting considered potential ballot questions, following a public hearing held during their meeting on June 23. 

This November, all seats on the council will be on the ballot. There’s also an election for mayor — though the filing period hasn’t yet come to pass, only Ward 1 Councilor Bruce Cheney has publicly announced his intent to run. 

As it stands, a primary election would be scheduled only if three or more candidates filed to run for mayor or for any of the seats on city council. The municipal primary would be held Tuesday, Sept. 9, about three weeks after the filing deadline for candidates is set to close. 

“My first thought on all these, they should be separate items for us to vote on and not all in a bunch? Because I have no problem with the first two — I do have a problem with removing a primary,” Ward 6 Councilor Tony Felch said. “If you have three candidates and two are similar and one is different, the two similar are going to split the votes.”

Councilors tabled the question unanimously. 

“I don’t believe that we should be getting rid of primaries,” Ward 5 Councilor Steven Bogert said. “I have the same feeling that [Felch does], when you have similar candidates then you get a split vote and the odd-person-out gets a majority of the vote. I have to agree with you there, I would much rather see the date change, to move it back if that’s what it takes.”