Two deadlines loom for the bedrock of Dedham's local government as Town Meeting candidates have until Thursday afternoon to pull papers and until Monday to submit 10 signatures to get onto April's ballot.

But, as of 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, the number of candidates who have pulled nomination papers and incumbents who submitted an intent to run again, fell more than 40 positions short of a full Town Meeting contingent.

"Do I think we'll have a full slate across the board? Probably not," said Town Clerk Paul Munchbach. "We would like to see a full slate of Town Meeting members."

Currently, Precinct 7 has the fewest candidates - with just 22 on the ballot and two people yet to return signatures.

While candidates can win through write-ins, particularly if a precinct lacks 39 eligible candidates on the ballot, too many write-ins would cause a headache for the Town Clerk's office, Munchbach said. 

"That's where it gets time consuming," he said. "I'm a little disappointed that we don't have some more activity with Town Meeting."

The town redistricted all but one precinct for this year, and when any residents move precincts, all Town Meeting members have to re-run, no matter the length of their current term. That means instead of 13 open slots on the ballot in each precinct, there are 39.

"We anticipated some openings, but as it looks now we'll have a lot of vacancies," said Munchbach. 

In past years there have been major projects facing a Town Meeting vote - last year the Dedham Square Improvement Project won approval - but this year, no such project is on the warrant.

"Most of the articles on the warrant are zoning - they're housekeeping," Munchbach said.