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 into the wrong district was “56,” and she later said 43 of those voters had cast ballots that would have been recorded under the incorrect district lines. Representative Sandy Pinstalt asked for clarification and Weber explained the tally: an initial count that listed 44 voters who had voted was reduced to 43 after officials determined one listed voter remained correctly assigned. Weber said she first learned of the problem only after being shown an email from a resident, Bruce Busa.

Laurie Shepherd, the representative-district clerk for Stamford, said she did not know of the problem until Bruce Busa asked the Stamford BCA to meet in November. Shepherd said the Stamford BCA judged that a full revote of all five towns in the district would likely produce much lower turnout and that “the majority of our board felt only the 56 people should revote.” One BCA member, Shepherd said, argued instead that only the 43 who had actually voted should be permitted to revote, on the grounds that reopening the entire contest would “invalidate the votes of all the people who, in good faith, went out and vote that day.”

Nathan Kurz, a Reedsboro selectboard member who chaired his town’s BCA meeting on the matter, said his board agreed the error “should be corrected,” but that correction should be “targeted as much as possible” either to the voters who received wrong ballots or to the single town where the mapping error occurred. Kurz said a revote limited to the five towns would likely draw much lower turnout and estimated a special election could cost his town roughly $2,000 in mailings and facility costs.

Committee members and witnesses discussed process and communication breakdowns. Weber said she and an assistant completed redistricting work using the state-supplied maps and that the State Elections Office emailed a completion notice on April 27, 2022. Weber said she contacted the state and the BCA after learning of the error but that no formal protocol guided her immediate steps. “I was in meltdown,” she told the committee, describing her effort to notify voters and to convene a BCA meeting quickly after the election.

BCA members voiced two recurring concerns: correcting the error without disenfranchising voters who cast ballots under the certified results, and avoiding disproportionate burdens on small towns asked to run an expensive special election. Several witnesses said they feared a full revote would draw different demographics — snowbirds and hunters were cited as examples — yielding a turnout far lower than the November election and raising questions about representativeness.

The committee did not adopt a formal remedy during the panel hearing. Members said the committee planned to hear the Department of State’s attorneys and sheriffs later in the afternoon and could request further information from municipal clerks and BCAs. Representative Matt Byron, committee chair, thanked witnesses and said staff might follow up for additional documents and spreadsheets referenced in testimony.

The discussion also included local context: Kurz described a separate, large bridge-replacement bill for his town that has dramatically increased costs for Reedsboro, illustrating the budget constraints small municipalities face when asked to fund special elections or other unplanned local costs.

The committee’s next scheduled item was testimony from the Department of State’s attorneys and sheriffs; members did not record any formal votes on corrective steps during this session.