House concurs with Senate amendments to election bill; lawmakers raise write-in vote concerns

The House of Representatives voted to concur in the Senate's proposal of amendment to House Bill 474, an act relating to miscellaneous changes to election law, and ordered the bill delivered to the governor forthwith.

The bill's amendment package removes several reporting requests that had been in earlier versions, revises requirements for write-in candidates, clarifies proof-of-citizenship requirements tied to automatic voter registration on license applications, and adds adjustments to campaign-finance reporting language, including a $500 minimum reporting threshold for certain committees.

House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee members said the committee heard testimony this afternoon from the deputy secretary of state, the director of elections, the senate reporter of the bill and the office of legislative counsel, and that the committee conducted an 11-person straw poll in support of concurrence. The committee recommended concurrence with the Senate's strike-all amendment.

The Senate's amendment removed several provisions that had been in earlier House drafts: language requesting a report on ranked-choice voting (section 1), a request for a report on electronic voting (section 6), and a provision seeking voluntary demographic information from candidates (section 8). Sections 30 through 36's proposed municipal voting changes were also removed, as was section 19's restriction that recounted municipal-election committees include only disinterested parties.

The amendment also changed write-in candidate rules. The House version's earlier recommendation to require 50 petition signatures for a write-in candidate (instead of 25) was removed. The amendment requires a write-in candidate to register in advance by 5 p.m. on the Thursday before the election for general-assembly and statewide offices (section 11), and it creates limited exemptions: if an on-ballot candidate dies or is disqualified, votes for a write-in may be counted even if the write-in candidate did not register; and if the total number of write-in votes exceeds the apparent winner's vote total, those write-in votes may be tallied even without prior registration. Section 12 addresses presidential primaries and is separate from section 11.

Members questioned how the changes would affect voters who write a person's name on the ballot when that person has not registered as a write-in candidate. The Member from Northfield said, "I see write-in votes as the right of voters who wanna be heard, and this excludes their voice in some categories." He asked whether ballots with nonregistered write-ins would be treated as spoiled; the Member from Charlotte explained there is an "other write-ins" category that would capture votes for persons who had not filed a consent form, and that the registration requirement is intended to help local officials capture misspellings and nicknames when counting.

The Member from Burlington said, "this feels undemocratic, and I can't support this bill that will limit access to democracy at a time," and announced an intention to vote no. The Member from Dover likewise said she would vote no, saying, "these seats are the people's seats and not the party seats."

On campaign finance, the amendment retains federal terminology by including the phrase "independent expenditure-only committee" alongside existing references to political-action and political committees so that reporting provisions apply uniformly. The amendment also adds a $500 minimum reporting threshold for these types of committees.

After debate and several interrogations of the presenter, the House recorded that "the ayes have it" on concurrence with the Senate amendment. The House then voted to deliver House Bill 474 to the governor forthwith. The House recessed afterward and said members would be notified by email if timing changed.

Discussion versus formal action: the record shows committee testimony and floor questions constituted discussion and clarification. Formal actions recorded in the session were (1) suspension of rules to consider HB 474 immediately, (2) concurrence in the Senate proposal of amendment, and (3) ordering the bill delivered to the governor. Several members stated they would vote against concurrence in the final vote; the transcript does not show a roll-call tally for the concurrence vote, only that "the ayes have it."