Clerks tell committee redistricting error sent wrong ballots to up to 56 voters; options debated

The House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee heard testimony from municipal clerks and Board of Civil Authority (BCA) members on a 2022 redistricting error that sent incorrect ballots to some voters in Bennington-area towns.

Julie Weber, Pownall town clerk, told the committee she received state certification of new district lines in April 2022 but later learned, “two days after the election,” that voters on Barber’s Pond Road and surrounding streets had been placed in the wrong district and had received incorrect ballots. “I sent out letters to everybody to let them know that they were in a new district,” Weber said, and after the November election she mailed a second notice reporting the error.

Why it matters: The error affected a small number of voters but touches core election-integrity questions — whether to correct only ballots cast by those who received wrong ballots, to hold a revote in only the affected precinct, or to reschedule a revote for the entire multi-town district. Committee members heard competing views on fairness, turnout effects and cost.

Weber told the committee that the number of voters whose addresses were mapped…