Sudbury Select Board consolidates Election Day polling at Fairbank Community Center

SUDBURY -- May 28, 2024, Sudbury Select Board consolidates all Election Day voting at Fairbank Community Center starting in September. The board voted 5-0 at the request of Town Clerk Beth Klein to merge precincts 4 and 6 from Town Hall into the Fairbank gym, where the other four precincts already vote; in-person early voting will remain at Town Hall. Klein cited the new gym's ADA compliance, central air, backup generator and parking, plus a roughly 50 percent drop in Election Day in-person turnout, from nearly 11,000 voters in 2016 to about 2,800 in 2020. Member Charles "Charlie" Russo, initially reluctant, said after visiting Fairbank in the spring that "the voter experience was just way better." The board also reallocated $36,000 of ARPA mental-health funding to per diem nursing and closed out roughly $162,000 in unused mental-health and Lincoln-Sudbury ventilation balances, with $1.7 million in ARPA dollars still unobligated against a Dec. 31 deadline.