Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Lawmakers rejected concerns that mailing ballots to people who hadn’t requested them might lead to voter fraud, stressing that mail-in voting would keep voters and poll workers safe in the event that COVID-19 made a fall resurgence.
The vote was held one day after the State of Georgia offered the nation a reminder of the challenges posed by in-person voting during a pandemic. Rep. Marybeth Redmond (D-Essex Junction) evoked the images of long lines, frustrated voters and overwhelmed poll workers there as she urged her colleagues to support the bill, which had already passed the Senate.
“Bottom line, Georgians were unable to cast their votes,” Redmond said. “I believe what transpired yesterday foreshadows potential issues to come in Vermont’s general election this November if we don’t move forward with an all-vote-by-mail program.”
The bill prevailed on second reading by a vote of 106 to 32. It will need a final vote Friday to be sent to the governor’s desk.
The bill has created a fair amount of confusion but is actually quite simple. In March the legislature gave Secretary of State Jim Condos “in consultation and agreement with the Governor” the power to make changes to 2020 elections for public health reasons.
Scott raised a series of concerns and insisted that the decision didn’t need to be made until August. Condos countered that time was of the essence. To break the stalemate, lawmakers decided to simply remove Scott from the equation.
The new bill removes the words “and agreement” from the original one, leaving the decision entirely up to Condos. He strongly supports a mail-in election in November due to the uncertainly about the trajectory of the pandemic.
Stripping the governor from such a decision, however, riled Republicans, who have repeatedly raised the specter of voter fraud, despite assurances from elections officials that it is effectively nonexistent in the state.
Several Republican members expressed concern that mail-in voting might allow people to be unduly influenced about how to vote.
Rep. Linda Myers (R-Essex) said she supports mail-in voting. It works in Oregon, where her sister lives, she said. But she also said she worried that Vermont’s version was being “thrown together” without enough attention to “ballot security.”
Myers proposed an amendment that would have restricted who could submit people’s ballots for them. Currently, absentee ballots can be turned in to a town clerk “by any means.” Myers wanted the law to state that only certain people could return an absentee ballot: the voter, a justice of the peace, authorized family members or caregivers.
Without such protections, Vermont risks “harvesting of ballots by individuals or organizations that may attempt to thwart the intention of individuals or even groups of voters," she said.
Rep. Felisha Leffler (R-Enosburg Falls) said she was concerned about political action committees and “hyper-political agenda groups” being allowed to engage in collecting ballots.
The Vermont Public Interest Research Group helps register voters and educates them about issues. But Paul Burns, its executive director, said their volunteers don't engage in ballot harvesting. Nevertheless, this is not a time to reduce the ways people can vote, he said.
"We think this bill should be about removing obstacles to voting, not adding new ones," Burns wrote in an email to Seven Days.
“The more people who have the opportunity to vote by mail, the fewer opportunities there will be for the disease to spread,” Rep. Robin Scheu (D-Middlebury) said.
Tags: mail-in voting , jim condos , phil scott , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
The Pomfret Republican took more than $256,000 in profits from Milne Travel and drew a salary close to $101,000, according to a tax return filed with the Secretary of State's Office. Milne owns a 49 percent stake in the travel agency cofounded by his late parents and now majority-owned by Altour.
But the vast majority of the candidate's 2018 income came not from plane tickets or cruise ship reservations but from the sale of cryptocurrency. Milne's tax return shows capital gains of more than $1.7 million, most of which he said was attributable to sale of the Ethereum and Ethereum Classic digital currencies.
"These investments are one of the cleanest ways of investing in the promise blockchain can bring to society, which I believe is immense and potentially transformational," he said.
Tags: Scott Milne , David Zuckerman , Rebecca Holcombe , Phil Scott , Brenda Siegel , Debbie Ingram , Tim Ashe , Molly Gray , Patrick Winburn , Web Only , Image
Thursday, June 4, 2020
By all indications, the longtime lawmaker and onetime gubernatorial candidate had planned to seek a fifth term in the Senate.
When asked last week, Rodgers said he was running and had mailed his paperwork to his district clerk in Newport. But Rodgers acknowledged this week that he cut it too close and missed the deadline, meaning he won’t be able to run as a Democrat in the upcoming primary.
Tags: Sen. John Rodgers , Sen. Jim McNeil , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
The Vermont Senate advanced a bill Tuesday to strip Republican Gov. Phil Scott of the ability to determine how elections will be conducted in the state this year, a decision that followed a robust debate pitting fears of a pandemic against worries of voter fraud.
Senators voted 21-7, largely along party lines, to give Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat, the sole authority to decide how statewide elections will be held in 2020. Lawmakers had previously granted that power jointly to Scott and Condos, hoping that whatever agreement the two struck would reflect a bipartisan compromise.
Instead, an increasingly tense standoff between the two men ensued on an issue tinged by the highly partisan national debate over how to balance people’s health with their right to vote.
Tags: mail-in voting , Phil Scott , Jim Condos , Web Only , Image
Thursday, May 28, 2020
To be listed on the August 11 primary ballot, candidates for statewide offices had to file with the Secretary of State’s Office. Other candidates — including for the Vermont Senate and the House — had the option of filing at local clerks’ offices, so the list won’t be complete until their names are added in the coming days. For example, House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) was not on the list Thursday evening, but she had filed with her local clerk on Wednesday.
The deadline nevertheless offers a look at how crowded some statewide primaries have become in a year when lawmakers, due to COVID-19, waived the requirement for candidates to gather signatures to get on the ballot.
Tags: election , primary , Secretary of State , Web Only , Image
Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P–Chittenden) kicked off his campaign for lieutenant governor on Thursday, an effort he said he was forced to delay for two months as he assisted in the state’s COVID-19 response.
Ashe, 43, said he has been focused on working with legislative leaders and Gov. Phil Scott to help the state respond to the pandemic.
“In my daily updates to Vermonters, I’ve calmly and honestly tried to explain what’s going on, why decisions have been made and point people to resources they need to get through this,” Ashe said in a Facebook Live announcement from his Burlington home.
Now, with the Democratic primary coming up on August 11, Ashe said he needed to begin explaining to voters what he’s accomplished since first being elected to the Senate in 2008 and why he’s leaving an influential post to seek one some view as largely ceremonial.
“I’m running for lieutenant governor to close the gap between the two Vermonts,” Ashe said.
The position is “uniquely situated” between the legislature and the governor and would allow him to continue advocating for policies to address income inequality in the state, he said.
"As the lieutenant governor, you effectively have the platform of a statewide elected official who members of the public look to to help create the policy direction of the state," Ashe said in an interview.
In his announcement, Ashe described the first Vermont as financially secure, a group of people who may be “knocked down a little” by the pandemic but who have “a quicker path back to their feet.”
“In this second Vermont, thousands of adult full-time minimum-wage workers are condescendingly told that that’s what the market dictates for their efforts, while our society lavishes obscene spoils on others,” Ashe said.
Ashe supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but so far that goal has been elusive. This year lawmakers were able to move toward it by boosting the minimum wage of $10.96 to $12.55 by 2022, overriding Scott’s veto.
“While I am my own person with my own beliefs, Bernie has inspired me since the first day I met him,” Ashe said.
In that sense, Ashe is very similar to Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, whose decision to challenge Scott for governor has inspired a number of people to seek the state's No. 2. seat.
In his announcement, Ashe laid out a platform very similar to that of his former boss. He said the state should pursue an economic development strategy that values “people, planet and profits.” He wants to protect Vermonters who need support, such as those with disabilities and mental health issues, and New Americans. And he proposed carbon emission reduction policies that help all Vermonters, not just those who can afford them.
“There is no better way to make a state full of environmentalists than to fight climate change in ways that save regular people money,” he said.
Ashe launched his campaign the same day the field of candidates got a surprise entrant — Republican Scott Milne, who nearly upset then-governor Peter Shumlin in 2014.
Ashe said he had no interest in talking about possible Republican opponents and that he was focusing solely on the upcoming primary.
The three other candidates for the Democratic nomination are Sen. Debbie Ingram (D-Chittenden), assistant attorney general Molly Gray and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Brenda Siegel.
In addition to Milne, Dana Colson of Sharon, the owner of a welding supply company, and Meg Hansen of Manchester, the owner of a communications firm, are seeking the Republican nomination.
Perennial candidate Cris Ericson is running as a Progressive.
Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflict-of-interest policy at sevendaysvt.com/disclosure.
Tags: Tim Ashe , Brenda Siegel , Molly Gray , Debbie Ingram , Meg Hansen , Dana Colson , Chris Ericson , lieutenant governor , Web Only , Image
The 61-year-old Milne, who drew notice in 2014 when he came within 2,500 votes of knocking off then-governor Peter Shumlin, is the most high-profile Republican to enter the race. He joins registered GOP candidates Meg Hansen, a health care activist from Manchester, and Dana Colson Jr., a political newcomer from Sharon.
Coming off his surprise showing in 2014, Milne challenged U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in 2016. That campaign ended with Leahy rolling to his eighth term by a healthy margin.
In a phone interview on Thursday, Milne described himself as a centrist and said he likes his chances this time around.
Tags: Scott Milne , lieutenant governor , Vermont , Republican , primary , election , Web Only , Image
First elected in 2016, the 61-year-old Berlin Republican had as recently as Wednesday refused to say whether he would run for reelection. But at 7 a.m. Thursday, hours before the 5 p.m. deadline to qualify for the August 11 primary election, Scott's campaign released a statement confirming what had been widely assumed in political circles.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
The Senate Government Operations Committee approved a bill that would remove Scott's power to decide how to conduct elections in 2020, leaving that authority solely with Secretary of State Jim Condos, a Democrat.
Condos and state elections officials have said they want to mail general election ballots to all registered voters to keep crowds small at the polls due to COVID-19 concerns. Health experts have raised the prospect of outbreaks in the fall.
“We just want to make certain that every Vermonter has the ability to vote safely in what will quite likely be a high-turnout election,” Chris Winters, deputy secretary of state, told the committee.
Scott has said he thinks the decision could wait until after the August 11 primary. Elections officials say there isn’t time to switch to mail-in voting by that date, but postcards will remind voters that they can request an absentee ballot. The governor would prefer to move toward restoring a sense of normalcy by holding a regular November election, if possible.
Elections officials have countered that the decision needs to be made now because mailing and printing contracts, voter education, and clerk training all need to commence to ensure the election goes smoothly.
Tags: COVID-19 , Election 2020 , Jim Condos , mail-in ballots , Phil Scott , Web Only , Image
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Rep. Kitty Toll (D-Danville), the chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, announced Saturday that she will not seek reelection.
Her departure after 12 years in office will leave the House without one of its most experienced number-crunchers as it enters an era likely marked by economic scars caused by the pandemic.
In a statement, Toll said the decision was a difficult one and called representing the residents of Cabot, Danville and Peacham in the Northeast Kingdom "one of the biggest honors of my life."
Tags: Kitty Toll , Jane Kitchel , House Appropriations Committee , Web Only , Image