House concurs with Senate changes to H.474 and sends election-law package to governor

The Vermont House suspended its rules to take up and then concurred in the Senate’s proposal of amendment to House Bill 474, “an act relating to miscellaneous changes to election law,” and ordered the measure sent to the governor forthwith.

The measure was taken up under suspension and returned from the Senate with several edits. Representative from Charlotte, reporting for the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee, said the Senate removed requests that had appeared in earlier drafts for reports on ranked-choice voting and on electronic voting by the secretary of state, and struck a provision requesting voluntary demographic information from candidates. She described the committee’s testimony that afternoon from the deputy secretary of state, the director of elections, the senate reporter of the bill and the Office of Legislative Council and noted a committee straw poll of 11 in support.

Committee reporting showed several substantive changes to how write-in candidacies and counting are handled. The amended bill requires a write‑in candidate to register by 5 p.m. on the Thursday before an election for their votes to be treated as a named, registered write‑in; the amendment also adds specified exemptions. The exemptions include cases where another candidate dies or is disqualified or where the total number of write‑in votes exceeds the apparent winner’s total; in those cases, write‑in votes may be counted even if the write‑in registrant did not file. Representative from Charlotte described the change as intended to assist town clerks and boards of civil authority in counting, including capturing misspellings or nicknames.

Representative from Northfield questioned aspects of sections 11 and 12 and emphasized voter rights, saying, "I see write in votes as, the right of voters who wanna be heard. And this excludes their voice in some categories." She and other members sought clarification about which offices the sections cover; the reporting member explained that section 11 applies to General Assembly races and statewide offices (secretary of state, treasurer, attorney general, lieutenant governor, governor) and does not apply to municipal elections, while section 12 applies only to presidential primaries.

Several members said they would vote against concurrence because of concerns about limiting voter access. Representative from Burlington said he was "concerned that in making a decision about 1 bite candidacy, we're only hearing from 1 side" and that the change "feels undemocratic, and I can't support this bill that will limit access to democracy." Representative from Dover also said he would vote no, urging colleagues to remember that "these seats are the people's seats and not the party seats."

The bill also adjusts campaign-finance language to explicitly include "independent expenditure-only committee" alongside political action committees and political committees, and adds a $500 minimum threshold for financial reporting for such entities. Other items removed in the Senate amendment included provisions that would have required only disinterested parties on recount committees for contested municipal elections and sections 30–36 that involved various municipal voting-law changes. Section 37 clarifies that proof of citizenship is required to obtain automatic voter registration or reregistration when that application is completed on a license form.

After debate and several members' questions and statements of concern, the House voted by voice to concur in the Senate’s proposal of amendment. The speaker announced that "the ayes do have it" and that the House had concurred. The House then voted to message the action to the governor and ordered H.474 delivered to the governor forthwith. The body recessed after the action and said it would reconvene later depending on the return of any additional bills from the Senate.

Votes and formal motions recorded in the transcript included a motion by the Representative from Poultney to suspend the rules to take up H.474 for immediate consideration (motion passed by voice) and the subsequent motions to concur in the Senate proposal of amendment and to deliver H.474 to the governor forthwith (both passed by voice).