It was standing room only at Hancock’s annual Town Meeting Saturday, with voters eager to discuss the proposed community power plan, which a majority of them approved.

The roughly four-hour meeting at the Hancock Meetinghouse garnered 164 of the town’s 1,425 registered voters, or about 11.5 percent.

More than an hour of the meeting focused on whether to adopt the Hancock Community Power Plan, which authorizes the Select Board to submit the plan to the N.H. Public Utilities Commission for approval.

Community power plans — which have been in action in several other area communities — allow the board, or other municipal government, to source electricity for local consumers instead of a utility company. A utility continues to maintain repairs for transmission lines and deliver electricity, but the municipality can pursue lower-cost and greener energy options.

The goal “is to really decrease the cost of electricity for everybody who wants to decrease the cost of their electricity,” said Kathy Anderson, a member of Hancock’s community power committee.

If the plan is approved by the state, those who do not wish to participate can opt out, Anderson said. (Details on this, she said, would be provided in a letter to residents 30 days prior to the plan’s start.)

Anderson said approval of this plan is just one step of many before the plan launches.

Several residents spoke in opposition of adopting the plan Saturday.

One of them was David Carney, who argued if people want cheaper power, they can switch providers themselves.

“On the [N.H. Public Utilities Commission] website this morning … there were 29 options other than Eversource to buy power. Every single one was cheaper than Eversource,” Carney said.

“Let’s see what … all those towns do and if it works out, we can join next year,” he added.

Others against the plan echoed Carney’s concerns, saying they didn’t like how the plan was an opt-out option, rather than opt-in.

Those supporting the proposal said they didn’t see the downside in additional choices for residents’ electricity source.

“Anybody who feels that it’s too big a hurdle to check the box on the letter that they get in the mail to opt out of this ‘scheme,’ I will come to your house, I will check the box and then I will drive the letter to the post office,” said David Kidd, followed by laughter and applause from the crowd.

Once discussion closed, Moderator Richard Haskins called the question via voice vote, but he deemed it too close. Residents voted again using provided green cards, which were counted by volunteers.

The article passed, 98-64. However, following a 15-minute break after the article was approved, Haskins said voters approached him with concerns that the voting process had been tampered with.

“I did not observe, but it was reported to me … people were reported tearing their voting card and sharing their card with other people. In my mind, that taints the vote ... It was [also] reported to me that many people did not vote because of intimidation,” Haskins said.

Haskins proposed conducting the vote again, this time by secret ballot. But, during the break, a good chunk of the crowd had left, which could also affect the vote outcome.

After a brief discussion, voters overruled Haskins, and kept the vote as is.

Also on Saturday, voters approved the $3,298,459 budget proposal, up about 16.1 percent, or $456,726, from the $2,841,733 budget voters approved last year.

Town Administrator Jonathan Coyne previously said the increase is related to rising costs of materials, fuel and utilities.

Residents also approved spending $28,900 to replace the town office’s leach field and rehabilitate the office parking lot.

And after some debate, voters OK’d the town contributing $2,500 to the Nubanusit Lake Association Lake Host Program to protect the lake’s water quality and combat infestation of invasive species such as milfoil. Approval of the article also carries a recommendation from voters that the Select Board put the article on future Town Meeting warrants.

Residents also approved allocating funds to four capital reserve funds: $160,577 to the bridge capital reserve fund, $15,000 to the building capital reserve fund, $10,000 to the meetinghouse capital reserve fund and $7,000 to the revaluation capital reserve fund.

Voters placed money into three special revenue funds: $2,064 to the highway special revenue fund, $2,644 to the history special revenue fund and $3,053 to the police special revenue fund.

The sole amendment that passed Saturday was to an article asking to add $4,414 into the town’s recreation special revenue fund. The amendment changed that amount to $6,112.

Residents will head to the town office on Tuesday, March 28, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. to vote on elected officials. The election was postponed — like many others in area towns — due to last week’s nor’easter.

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