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[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: Will the house please come to order and members kindly take their seats? Members, we are returning, after a brief recess and in this slot of time we will be taking up House Bill four seventy four and then having another recess. So with that, member from Pultely can you please offer us a motion to suspend our rules to take up for immediate consideration pending its entry on the notice calendar the senate proposal of amendment on house bill four seventy four which is an act relating to miscellaneous changes to election law.
[Representative Patricia McCoy (Poultney)]: Madam speaker, I make a motion to suspend rules to take up h four seven four for immediate consideration pending entry on the notice calendar.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The member from Pulte moves that we suspend rules to take up for immediate consideration pending its entry on the notice calendar house bill four seventy four. Are you ready for the question? If so, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. All those opposed please say nay. The ayes appear to have it, the ayes do have it and you have suspended rules to take up House Bill four seventy four for immediate consideration. House Bill four seventy four is an act relating to miscellaneous changes to election law. The bill passed the Senate in concurrence with a further proposal of amendment which the first assistant clerk emailed to members at 12:55 today. This amendment is also posted on the house overview webpage and paper copies are available at the main table. Member from Charlotte.
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, h four seventy four, an act relating to miscellaneous changes to election law returned from the senate to strike all amendment. We recommend that the house concur with the senate proposal of amendment. The bill returned to us largely the same as it left with the following exceptions. In section one, the request for a report on ranked choice voting from the secretary of state was removed from the bill. Section six, the request for a report on electronic voting from the secretary of state was removed. Section eight, the request for voluntary demographic information from candidates was also removed. Sections nine through 12 are changes from the house bill regarding writing candidates. This is a more significant little piece of change here. So the house recommendation that a writing candidate's petition have 50 rather than 25 signatures was removed. The provision that a writing candidate for house or senate office or above, so this is house and senate and then statewide elections, it does not affect local elections at all, That was amended to change the deadline for submission of registration as a writing candidate to five PM on the Thursday before the election, which is generally a Tuesday, so that's around five days, but it specifies in the bill. It's 5PM on the Thursday before an election. The bill is amended also adds exemptions to requiring a write in registration from a candidate. Exemptions for that deadline would be if the other candidate dies, if they miss a filing deadline, but they win anyway. If the candidate is the other candidate is disqualified, and those write ins would then be counted, or if the total number of write in votes this is complicated, but we got it if the total number of write in votes exceeds the number of votes that the apparent winner got, then those write ins would all be counted as well even if the person didn't file a registration. Sections 13 to 17 include changes related to campaign finance. You'll remember that an independent expenditure only committee is when a group or an individual aren't connected to a specific candidate but want to influence a campaign or a race. This is this language needs to remain in the bill because it's a federal term, so it's important to still keep it in statute. The bill has only changed so that whenever the terms political action committee or political committee appear, the term independent expenditure only committee is also included alongside them just to make sure that the same laws apply to all these similar types of situations and committees. These sections also add a $500 minimum threshold to financial reporting for these kinds of committees. Section 19, which would have required only disinterested parties to be part of a recount committee in a contested municipal election was removed. Sections 30 through 36, which involved various changes to municipal voting laws were removed, and the final change is in section 37, which clarifies that proof of citizenship in order to get automatic voter registration or reregistration would be required on a if you were filling that section out on your license application. Your house government operations and military affairs committee heard testimony this afternoon from the deputy deputy secretary of state, the director of elections, the senate reporter of the bill, the office of legislative council, and with an enthusiastic straw poll of eleven zero zero, we respectfully request your support.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The question is, shall the house concur in the senate proposal of amendment? Are you ready for the question? If so, member from Burlington.
[Representative Brian Cina (Burlington)]: Madam speaker, may I interrogate the presenter of the bill?
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The member from Charlotte's interrogated.
[Representative Brian Cina (Burlington)]: Madam speaker, it's my understanding that, when taking testimony on, I believe, what's now not sore loser but second bite candidacy or something. One bite, I'm sorry, one bite candidacy. That there was testimony taken from people who won these races, but did we hear the perspective of people who have lost primary races and then were nominated by other political parties or who lost primary races for one political party and chose to run as an independent after. Did we hear any testimony from that perspective?
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, are you asking about original testimony on April before it left the house, or are you asking about the version as amended?
[Representative Brian Cina (Burlington)]: I'm asking in the about testimony in the entire context of creating this piece of legislation. Did we hear did we only hear from from one side, or did we hear from both sides when it comes to one by candidacy?
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, I cannot remember exactly who testified on this, but I do believe we heard a variety of viewpoints about this type of candidacy.
[Representative Brian Cina (Burlington)]: Thank you, madam speaker. I'm I'm madam speaker, I'm thank you, member. I meant thank you, member. Yeah. Madam speaker, I'm just concerned that in making a decision about one bite candidacy, we're only hearing from one side, and this feels undemocratic, and I can't support this bill that will limit access to democracy at a time. It will limit access to democracy locally at a time when it's threatened nationally. Thank you.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The question is shall the house concur in the senate proposal of amendment member from Dover?
[Representative Laura Sibilia (Dover)]: Madam speaker, I wanna thank the committee for their work. There are a lot of important changes in here that are meaningful. I have to echo the concerns from the member from Burlington and sadly we'll have to vote no and just want to remind my colleagues that these seats are the people's seats and not the party's seats.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The question is shall the house concur in the senate proposal of amendment member from Northfield?
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: Thank you madam speaker. The area of this bill I was most, concerned about was the the write in, counting of write in votes because, a lot of it seems to be focused as if write in votes are about the person who may be elected and what they have to do or should do if they actually want to win. I've never seen it that way. I see write in votes as, the right of voters who wanna be heard, and this excludes their voice in some categories. I I want would like to clarify because trying to catch up with the changes at the last minute. I'm I'm not clear about the consistency of, section 11 and section, 12. So if I may interrogate the member reporting the bill.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The member from Charlotte is interrogated.
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: So, madam speaker, when I look at section 11, it it seems clear as to when the ballots are counted. And if if a name is not on the ballot or a candidate, a candidate I I I don't consider them a candidate actually if they're not running for office, but a candidate who's filed consent in compliance with the later section, then then there's a vote tally for other writings as a whole. Is that correct that that is tallied?
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, could you you know, I I'll just explain this section again if you're asking about section 11. And if sort of explaining it in more detail doesn't help, please let me know. So what this section does is requires a candidate to register in advance as a write in candidate on the Thursday before an election by 5PM. And there are this section clarifies that there are some exemptions to requiring candidates to register for that period of time. One exemption is if the candidate if one of the candidates dies or is disqualified, then the other then the person who is staging the writing campaign, even though they haven't registered, those votes will still count unless they've already filed a consent form, unless there's nobody else on the ballot. If there are more votes for a writing candidate than there are for potentially who the winner of that race would be, or, I guess that's the final exemption. Does that answer your question?
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: In part, thank you, madam speaker. If I could just, again, the members using the term write in candidate or write in campaign, I'm more in concerned about someone who doesn't isn't running a campaign to be written in, doesn't consider themselves a candidate, but voters are putting that person's name down. And so just to confirm, if I'm reading this, if voters have put someone's name down, but that name and potentially other write ins don't exceed the person who's on the ballot, then those won't be added up at all individually. Is that correct?
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: That is correct, madam speaker. I wanna clarify that the reason for requiring this registration in the first place is to help the boards of civil authority and the town clerks who are counting the ballots and assist them in counting the ballots and making sure that they can capture misspellings or nicknames or things like that, and that it is not intended as an attempt to dissuade somebody from running or to find a loophole to not count votes.
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: Thank you, madam speaker. Again, I I'm not concerned about people being dissuaded from running. I'm not concerned about the putative candidate. I'm concerned about voters who want to nominate someone. And so the second part of my question actually has to do with the discussion of the nominating petition in section 12, and this talks about requirements for filing of this write in, candidate, and it it doesn't list it doesn't have comparable language about exemptions from that if there are a cumulative tally of different write in names. I'm assuming there's a reason, but I don't see the flow for it in terms of seeing the the language now.
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, section 12 is specifically about presidential primaries and section 11 is about house senate and above elections. It's just making sure those two things are aligned.
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: I'm sorry. Madam speaker, I didn't hear the tail end
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: of
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: the
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Oh, it's just making sure those two things are aligned, those two portions of the bill.
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: Alright. Madam speaker, just to clarify. So section 11, is specific to, maybe to ask again, what which what election is section 11 specific to?
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Section 11 applies to races for, the general assembly and all statewide offices. So secretary of state, treasurer, attorney general, lieutenant governor, governor. It does not apply to municipal elections.
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: And section 12, madam speaker, that is for primary ballots for those same different state offices?
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, section 12 applies to presidential primaries. Running for president.
[Representative Anne B. Donahue (Northfield)]: So section 12 is only in terms of presidential Yes. Elections. Correct. Okay. Thank you, madam speaker. I, think that clarifies it some. It's it's remains confusing because of what's not in front of us in the statute which doesn't exactly say what different elections are are applied but I I continue particularly not being able to fully sort it out at this point. Continue to be concerned about the right of voters to have their votes counted. And I'm not concerned about candidates. If you wanna run as a right in candidate, apparently you decided late in the game and didn't wanna follow the the ordinary process. I'm concerned about voters and their fundamental right and I don't see that right being fully protected to have their ballots actually count and be counted. So I think there's a lot good. I think there was a lot of accommodation that was attempted but I'm not in support of this language.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The question is shall the house concur in the senate proposal of amendment member from Charlotte.
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, I was reminded that we regarding an earlier question that we did hear testimony from a representative, a member from Burlington about the the other side, to quote, of the the candidacy, the one by candidacy provision.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: Are you ready for the question? Member from Tunbridge.
[Representative John O'Brien (Tunbridge)]: Madam speaker, may I interrogate the presenter?
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The member from Charlotte is interrogated.
[Representative John O'Brien (Tunbridge)]: Madam speaker, just a follow-up question to the member from Northfield's line of questioning. Going forward in a race where they're writing votes for candidates, they're writing votes for a race, let's say a general assembly race where the votes are not for a candidate, a writing candidate who who filed the consent form, will those writing votes be considered spoiled ballots or spoiled in that in that specific race.
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, I didn't quite hear what what you said after you said would they be counted as what?
[Representative John O'Brien (Tunbridge)]: The spoiled ballot. Generally, I I think it's up to the BCA having served in the BCA entomorage that certain things like if you if you write in Mickey Mouse, it's one thing. If you write in actually a, you know, a say a person in town who's a real person who's alive, if that person had no desire to run but was written in, would it still be considered a spoiled ballot?
[Representative Chea Waters Evans (Charlotte)]: Madam speaker, if someone wrote in a candidate's name who or a a nomination for somebody or a vote for somebody who had not voted or who had not registered as a writing candidate ahead of time, I don't believe it would be a spoil candidate. I believe that that vote would be counted as an other write in candidate.
[Representative John O'Brien (Tunbridge)]: So there's a category for other write ins besides the ones who have filed a consent form? Yes. Okay. Thank you, madam speaker. Thank you, member.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The question is shall the house concur in the senate proposal of amendment? Are you ready for the question? If so, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say nay. Aye. The ayes appear to have it, The ayes do have it and you have concurred in the senate proposal of amendment. Member from Pultely, can you please offer us a motion to deliver house bill four seventy four to the governor forthwith.
[Representative Patricia McCoy (Poultney)]: Madam speaker, I make a motion to message our actions to this, to the governor on h four seven four forthwith.
[Representative Jill Krowinski (Speaker of the House)]: The member from Pulte moves that we deliver house bill four seventy four to the governor forthwith. Are you ready for the question? If so, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say nay. Aye. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes do have it, and you have ordered house bill four seventy four to be delivered to the governor forthwith. Members at this time, we will recess again until 04:30. However, if we do not have a bill, back from the senate yet, we will we will delay coming back to accommodate the timing. So please keep an eye on your email. We'll have a sign at the podium if there is a change in timing. So with that, the house will stand in recess until the fall of the gavel at 04:30.