NHEC special election results!

[Twags]

All,

My friend and colleague, Dick Knox, says it best:

"A very big THANK YOU to NH Electric Co-op members who responded to the call to vote in the Co-op’s just-concluded special election on broadband. A stunning 88.4 percent of you voted Yes on the proposition to change NHEC’s bylaws, enabling it to go forward with its ambitious plans to bring fast, affordable internet service to tens of thousands of Co-op members who now lack it.
When was the last time ANY proposition won 88 percent of the vote?

Not only does this send a strong signal to the Co-op about what its members want and expect their utility to do to address the painful rural internet gap, but it stands as a resounding signal to elected officials (at all levels), to funding agencies, and to entrepreneurs (both nonprofit, like NHEC, and for-profit) that broadband internet is a pressing need with compelling public support. The pandemic underscored this need. As Co-op board chairman Tom Mongeon noted, it’s analogous to the Co-op’s provision of electricity to rural areas in 1939.

Finally, this is the second time in four months that Co-op members have sent this signal. Back in June, a pro-broadband initiative put forward by a no-budget grass roots group fell just 183 votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed to change the Co-op’s bylaws adding broadband to the utility’s charter. But that was enough to get the ball rolling…and as it rolled it gathered size and momentum, as this special election result shows.

In other words, democracy can (sometimes) work.

Richard Knox
Chair, New Hampshire Broadband Advocates"