Absurd as it seems, residents of Groton will be asked Monday for a third time to approve a large school building project. As ridiculous as this process has turned out to be, it is a good and worthwhile plan and voters should — again — give their approval.

Plus, if they don’t, it will create a real mess.

Approval number one came in 2016 when voters OK’d the plan to renovate two existing middle schools into elementary schools and build a new middle school for all the town’s grade 6-8 students. The referendum approval authorized the town to bond $184.5 million, with the state reimbursing $100 million of that cost.

The project was intended to both provide Groton students with modern facilities and address racial imbalances in the school system.

Architects and designers provided assurances this was the best approach, except that it wasn’t. As they further moved down the design process, project planners decided that two new schools for the pre-k through fifth-grade students could be built for the same price as converting the middle schools. New schools would be more energy efficient and last longer.

On Dec. 11, voters were asked to approve the amended plan, which did not change the bottom-line cost, and they did so overwhelmingly, 1,092-239. That should have finally been the end of it, with construction moving forward. Except that it wasn’t.

Turned out a fundamental requirement was botched. Legal notice of a pending referendum must be published 30 days before the vote. The notice in this case was published in The Day only 20 days prior to the vote, which in the opinion of bond counsel invalidated the subsequent results.

Thus, we have Monday’s third vote.

The danger is that voters will not be paying attention and the naysayers, who perhaps will be, will reject the referendum. The vote has been scheduled the same day as the municipal election in the City of Groton. But given that all those races are uncontested, it is questionable how much that fact will drive turnout.

Voters who recognize this as a worthwhile project need to show up.

If voters were to vote “no,” the town would be in a bad situation. The first referendum vote would still be in place, so the project could return to the original plan to renovate the middle schools into elementary schools. Yet what sense would that make given that new construction was recognized as the best option and overwhelmingly approved by voters, only to be invalidated by a technicality?

A special act of the General Assembly potentially could validate the second vote, but that would be in contradiction of the third vote.

Voters can avoid this potential legal mess by voting “yes.”

The situation has had no effect on the building of the new 155,000-square-foot consolidated middle school. Construction is under way.

As to how the town got here, the buck stops with Town Clerk Betsy Moukawsher. It was Moukawsher who certified that the legal notice published Nov. 21 was done not less than 30 days prior to the referendum, which was not the case.

The clerk contends her hands were tied because Representative Town Meeting approval of the ordinance did not come until Nov. 14, not giving her time to meet the 30-day requirement. That problem could have been addressed in a couple of ways. Moukawsher could have posted the notice by the 30-day deadline and later published a cancellation notice in the unlikely event the RTM did not give its OK. Alternatively, she could have alerted town officials that the 30-day requirement could not be met, forcing a change of plans.

Either alternative would have been better than causing a situation that invalidated such an important vote.

Miscommunication with bond counsel may have been a contributing factor, but ultimately public notification falls under the town clerk’s responsibilities.

We urge Groton once more, and hopefully once and for all, to approve the school project referendum on Monday.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.