12 Things to Know About Tuesday's Referendum

Tuesday's the day for voting in the townwide referendum on whether $800,000 cut from the proposed Board of Education budget for 2011-12 by the Representative Town Meeting should be restored. Here are 12 things to keep in mind:

1) A "Yes" vote means the voter is in favor of restoring the $800,000. A "No" vote means the voter is opposed.

2) Voting hours are from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at regular polling places, except for voters in District 2, who will vote in Burr Elementary School. For a list of polling places, see the bottom of this article.

3) Residents should be able to catch returns of the referendum as they become available from the comfort of their homes. The Registrar of Voters' Office plans to post results in each of the town's 10 voting districts, as they become available, on the town's website. To access the page, go to www.fairfieldct.org and click on "voter info" toward the bottom left side of the page. That should take you to a chart that shows results of the referendum.

4) For the referendum to succeed, 8,640 voters will have to vote "Yes" (in favor of restoring the $800,000) and those "Yes" votes also will have to be a majority of votes cast.

There are 34,557 voters in Fairfield, and the 25-percent requirement for a referendum to succeed pertains to "Yes" votes in favor of overturning the RTM's decision - not overall turnout.

If 8,600 voters vote "Yes" in Tuesday's referendum, 1,000 voters vote "No" and overall turnout is 27.8 percent, the referendum will fail because 25 percent of voters (or 8,640 voters) did not vote "Yes."

5) There's no "strategy" to voting in a referendum. Since the 25-percent requirement pertains only to "Yes" votes in favor of overturning the RTM's decision, voters who support the RTM's decision won't have any effect on the 25-percent requirement. Voters who support the RTM's decision are only important in determining which side has a majority - but the question of which side has a majority is irrelevant unless "Yes" votes reach 8,640.

6) The Board of Education's budget for 2011-12, as approved by the RTM, is $145.68 million, a 2.9 percent increase over the current budget of $141.6 million. If the referendum succeeds, the Board of Education's budget will be increased to $146.48 million, a 3.5 percent increase over the current budget.

7) The last successful referendum was in 1995, when voters overturned the RTM's approval of $24.6 million to renovate the former Roger Ludlowe High School into space for educational and recreational uses.

In that referendum, 8,377 voters voted to overturn the RTM's decision; 4,170 voters voted in favor of the RTM's decision; and overall turnout was 37.9 percent. The number of votes needed to overturn the RTM's decision in that referendum was 8,276.

8) According to the Fairfield Registrar of Voters' Office, 16 referendums have been held since 1960. Of those, only five (or less than 33 percent) succeeded. Before 1995, the last successful referendum was in 1972.

9) Two referendums that failed since 1960 actually wound up "winning" in the end because the RTM reversed its decision after the unsuccessful referendum.

In 1975, the RTM rescinded its approval of $3 million to build a Community and Recreation Center in Tunxis Hill Park after a referendum because 8,040 voters were against the project (just 25 votes short of the required 8,065 votes for the referendum to succeed.) In 1983, the RTM rescinded its approval of $770,000 in preliminary work for a complex of senior citizen housing and adult daycare at the former Grasmere School because the vote in that referendum was 5,782 against the idea and only 740 in favor. The number of "No" votes needed for that referendum to succeed was 8,039 - well short of the 5,782 actually recorded.

10) The outcome in Tuesday's referendum is final because, unlike in 1975 and 1983, the RTM isn't allowed to rescind its vote after the referendum. Town attorneys said the votes to rescind in 1975 and 1983 were on bonding resolutions, while the RTM's vote last month was on the budget - not a bonding resolution.

11) The most recent referendum was held in August on the RTM's decision to approve $350,000 to build a girls' Little League field and infrastructure for a park on Hoyden's Lane. That referendum failed, with 2,404 voters opposed to the RTM's decision and 1,168 voters in favor. For that referendum to succeed, 8,848 voters would have had to vote against the RTM's decision and those votes also would have had to be a majority of votes cast.

12) The highest voter turnout in any referendum since 1975 was in 1997, when voters upheld the RTM's decision to approve $17.1 million to convert the former Roger Ludlowe High School building into a middle school. Turnout in that referendum was 41.3 percent, with 7,630 votes in favor of the RTM's decision and 6,794 votes opposed.

The middle school moved a few years later into a new building on the Ludlowe campus so the Board of Education could reopen a high school in the former Roger Ludlowe High School building.

Here are the polling locations for Tuesday's referendum, which will be done by hand ballot. Residents unsure of which voting district they live in can call the Registar of Voters' Office at 203-256-3115 or the Town Clerk's Office at 203-256-3090.

District 1 - Fairfield Senior Center, 100 Mona Terrace

District 2 -Burr Elementary School, 1960 Burr St.

District 3 - Dwight School, 1600 Redding Road

District 4 - Osborn Hill School, 760 Stillson Road

District 5 - McKinley School, 60 Thompson St.

District 6 - Fairfield Warde High School, 755 Melville Ave.

District 7 - North Stratfield School, 190 Putting Green Road

District 8 - Holland Hill School, 200 Meadowcroft Road

District 9 - Fairfield Ludlowe High School, 785 Unquowa Road

District 10 - Roger Sherman School, 250 Fern St.