By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

Local voters have one less source of information on political matters after the closing of Vote Smart Goffstown on June 30.

Pamela Manney, a local resident since 1992 and a state representative, began Vote Smart Goffstown in 2000 as a means of delivering nonpartisan information on town and state issues.

“As a voter, I found it hard to get viable information,” Manney said of her attempts to gather resources on town issues and candidates.

“You had information from one group who opposed everything because they said taxes are sky high, but you had no group that told you what the actual facts were,” Manney said.

Manney’s activities in Vote Smart Goffstown primarily included distributing about 2,500 voter guides throughout town and maintaining the www.VoteSmartGoffstown.com Web site.

The voter guides included town and school ballots, candidate information, voter registration details and news on several local topics, Manney said.

The Web site contained most of the materials in the voter guides, as well as dozens of links to state and local government agencies, representatives in Congress and the Senate, political parties, local media, churches, public schools, colleges, sports organizations and nonprofit organizations.

Manney, a first-term Republican state representative who sits on the House Executive Departments and Administration Committee, said her work on behalf of the GOP on state and local levels forced her to sacrifice VoteSmartGoffstown.

“What really precipitated my desire to close (VoteSmart Goffstown) down was my own involvement in Republican Party politics,” said Manney.

As secretary of the Goffstown Town Republican Committee and a a volunteer at the New Hampshire GOP office in Concord, Manney said she found it difficult to continue VoteSmart Goffstown as a nonpartisan organization.

Along with her desire to keep VoteSmartGoffstown pure of partisan influence, Manney also cited financial and time concerns in her decision to discontinue the organization.

Between printing costs, a $75 annual financial filing fee to the state Attorney General’s Office and other operating expenses, Manney said she was spending approximately $1,000 of her own money every year on Vote SmartGoffstown.

Manney said she spent about 10 hours a week maintaining the Web site even during the slow times. Also, she attended every meeting of the Goffstown Board of Selectmen and other public meetings to keep updated on topics of interest to the public.

“People turned to the VoteSmartGoffstown for the local issues, so I had to keep up on what was going on,” she said.

Advertising helped cover some of the expenses of maintaining VoteSmartGoffstown, though Manney said the $50 charge to eight advertisers provided minimal financial relief.

On the advertisers’ side, at least one supporter said he found his relationship with VoteSmart Goffstown a valuable one.

William Hart said his inclusion in the voter guide helped him run a successful write-in campaign for the budget committee in March of 2006.

“Even as a write-in candidate, I got a lot of support. And tracking it down, I found a lot of that support came from Pam’s Web site,” said Hart, who garnered 125 votes for a two-year term on the budget committee.

An advertisement for Hart’s Handyman and Construction in the voter’s packet also brought in a windfall of business, Hart said.

“I advertised in the Spring Voter Guide, and I must have gotten 50 calls in the first week,” Hart said.

Manney said she believes VoteSmartGoffstown served a useful purpose during its presence on the political landscape, and she will miss the community contact afforded her by distributing the information.

“I really enjoyed the traveling around town and meeting people. There’s no better way to find out what’s on people’s minds,” Manney said.

Though www.VoteSmartGoffstown.com has disappeared from the political map, Manney said she will continue to provide some information through her new Web site, pammanney.com.