Town Councillor Nicholas DelVento raised an interesting point in discussing the override election at Tuesday night’s meeting – should the council decide the order of the questions on the ballot or should they be in alphabetical order by department as they were listed on the review sheet at Tuesday night’s meeting?
In our view, DelVento’s question demonstrates that he understands the psychology of elections and the unprecedented importance of the May 19 election. As political observers know, in multiple candidate elections, most candidates prefer to be at the top of the ballot.
But in an override election, is the order of the questions significant? For example, should the police and fire department appear one after another on the ballot? That’s for the council to decide, but we tip our political caps to Nick for leaving no stone unturned or no topic beyond debate when it comes to arguably the most important election in Winthrop’s history.