Voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide three statewide questions and a smattering of local elections and referendum questions.

At least one local clerk predicts there will be plenty of signature gatherers hoping to get a leg up heading into the 2016 election.

Voters in Hallowell will decide a contested race for city council, while Augusta voters have two candidates to choose from to fill a school board seat.

Winthrop has a four-way race for three spots on the town council.

Augusta voters will be asked to approve borrowing $1.7 million for street and sidewalk improvements.

Readfield officials are seeking approval to borrow $424,000 in bonds to finance a new firetruck.

And in Windsor, a proposal to borrow $335,000 to buy a smaller, cheaper version of the firetruck residents voted against purchasing previously will be decided in a referendum question.

Three referendum questions go to voters statewide, a citizen initiative to change campaign finance laws and two bond issues, one for $15 million to help fund the construction of new energy-efficient affordable homes, adaptive reuse of structures for homes, and repair and weatherization of existing homes, all for low-income senior citizens, and the other for $85 million for construction, reconstruction and rehabilitation of highways and bridges and facilities and equipment related to ports, harbors, marine transportation, railroads, aviation, transit and bicycle and pedestrian trails.

People collecting signatures for citizen-initiated petitions could make some polling areas look pretty full all by themselves.

Eight different citizen-initiated petitions are currently approved by the Secretary of State for circulation. Babara Wardwell, city clerk in Augusta, said she’s heard from representatives of most of them, and they plan to be out collecting signatures at the polls on Election Day Tuesday.

“What’s going to be troublesome for us — clerks — this year is the petitioners,” Wardwell said. “I’ve had more petitioners inquire about space than I have room for. Some of our polls don’t have room for all of them.”

She said petition-collectors are restricted to having tables inside polling places at the exits where, she said, they’re not supposed to influence voters entering the polls to cast their votes on this year’s issues, not the issues being pushed by petitioners. She said it’ll be first-come, first-served for petition signature collectors Tuesday. If a polling place fills up, petition collectors for whom there isn’t space will have to leave, though they can come back later to see if any other collectors have left and freed up some room.

Citizen initiated petitions in circulation currently include petitions seeking to legalize marijuana, raise the minimum wage, establish ranked-choice voting, change the criteria for wind energy development, require background checks for gun sales, allow for public funds to be used to pay tuition to religious private schools and establish a fund to advance public kindergarten to grade 12 education.

Regardless of the cause or location of petition-signature collectors, voters can feel free to ignore them, if they so choose.

“Voters don’t have to bother. They can walk right by,” Wardwell said.

Wardwell anticipates this election’s voter turnout will be light. She said Friday the city has issued about 250 absentee ballots. Using that figure to project the number of residents likely to vote, based on past experience, Wardwell expects about 1,500 of the city’s 13,184 registered voters to vote in this election, or between 11 and 12 percent.

Contested elections and referendum questions to be decided this year at the polls in central Maine include:

• Augusta: Ward 3 Board of Education, April Cusick versus Ray Dostie; $1.7 million bond for street and sidewalk improvements to be paid back with proceeds collected in a tax increment financing fund from taxes on natural gas infrastructure;

• Hallowell Ward 4 City Council, Diano Circo versus Andrea Mooney;

• Winthrop: Four candidates for three spots on the Town Council. Candidates are David Bubier, Linda Caprara, Kevin Cookson and Priscilla Jenkins;

• Readfield: $424,000 in bonds to buy a new firetruck. The proposed new pumper truck would replace a 1986 pumper that has leaky water tanks and a rusty body;

• Windsor: $335,000 to purchase a new, two-person-cab pumper firetruck, to be funded by a $250,000 loan, $50,000 from a reserve account and $35,000 from the town’s general fund balance. Officials said the proposed truck is essentially a smaller, cheaper version of a six-person-cab pumper truck residents voted against borrowing $350,000 to purchase, for $406,000, in a secret ballot vote in June;

• Monmouth: A proposal to spend $50,000 to be matched by a $50,000 grant from the state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry to add parking and toilet facilities to the town’s boat launch on Cochnewagon Lake. The proposal is the first phase in a project that could also, later, increase parking and make other improvements at the boat launch and adjacent town beach.

A guide prepared by the Department of the Secretary of State and others seeks to provide Maine residents with detailed, unbiased and non-partisan information about the issues voters will consider at the polls. The 2015 Maine Citizens Guide to the Referendum Election is available on the Secretary of State’s website.

Question 1 on the state ballot is a citizen initiated proposal to change Maine law to allow publicly financed candidates to qualify for additional funds under certain rules and limits in the Maine Clean Election Act, increase funding for the Maine Clean Elections Fund, improve the disclosure of who pays for political ads and increase penalties for violations of campaign finance law.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @kedwardskj

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