Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Very loud. Good morning. We are in the Senate Judiciary. It's March 17. We are starting to take up House bills now and starting off with H five forty one. And we have led your counsel here to advise the law to enforce it.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you very much, Chittenden. For the record, my name is Tim Devil, legislative counsel. And yes, you have a Devil party age 5.1 that alleging the appearance of voters and election officials. And this, well it looks somewhat familiar just having gone through the Voting Rights Act, that is S-two 98 last week, and I can just briefly describe this as a bill that kind of somewhat similar to two provisions, you know, should be collection of parents' duty credits, statutory sections as to what they need and kind of just applies to it without it. So if you will see contemplated conduct that will either interfere with the operations of election officials or voter rights themselves. So I should just officially note that Section one will eliminate what become redundant language and it's a whole kind of wonky anyways. 1972 subsection C of 170 is not quite quite an editorial lesson but there but of substance you'll find in section two is created in 17 bsa section 17 sorry nineteen seventy five to be titled interference with voters and election officials and this will be slotted into general 17 where we have other election laws in this chapter on offenses against the purity of elections that is chapter 55. So here we have subsection A of line 19 reading no person shall intentionally or recklessly intimidate, threaten, coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce (one) any other person for the purpose of: instructing the right of the other person to vote or to vote as the other person may choose or B, causing the other person to vote for or not to vote for any candidate in the public office to help a question the election or, again, read the language in opinion, No person shall intentionally or recklessly to predate a threat of force or attempt to invade a threat of force. Two, a public servant, an election official, or a public employee for the purpose of obstructing the adventurgence of election. Then we move on to our penalties, the need of a person who violates subsection and the section shall be imprisoned not more than two years or an indictment not more than $2,000 or both. And I should just make some of notes that the Bens Reyes did some of the 19 there. We had intentionally bore recklessly. Recklessly is the bare minimum that the US Supreme Court has called up and then criminal threatening scenarios. So this provides for either potential or problem. And then also I should note that overriding penalties will match what's in our current criminal organization under criminal threatening. It's ten thirteen, that's thirteenth VSA, seventeen oh two, which does have some electric provisions in it. They are essentially enhancements to an underlying general criminal threatening provisions and subsection of status. And that's it for now. You have any questions now? Yeah. Just gotta mail that. Well, off pretty quickly. I think that's in the end. Things are out. We're done.

[Speaker 0]: My I think you've briefly mentioned it, and I'm Okay. I have two ninety eight in front of me here as well. And I have graph 3.1, but you

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: I believe it's a lot of gut bounds. Yes. 2023,

[Speaker 0]: the The mens rea in May is intentionally or recklessly tested. In 2023, it's intentionally. And so I'm kind of confused as to whether we're creating a redundancy here because it looks like what's in 541. I haven't looked at it too closely yet, but it looks like there are some redundancies there. And I was wondering if you could dive a bit

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: deeper into what we're kids were eradicating at that time. Sure. I can state that these mills were developed independently of each other not really with each other's existence necessarily in mind. See the House Producer Committee took testimony and deliberated on 05:41 before Senate, the November and Operations Committee picked up S298 for consideration. That I think is helpful context to know, but when we kind of compare them, let's see, so we have in S298, we have the four different election interference proficient generally. So you have twenty twenty two, that's intimidation of election officers. Some of that is captured here. We have intimidation of voters. Some of that is captured here. And then we have, I would say depending on the facts it could somewhat overlap with communication of all situations in eligible voters. And all of the crimes described in S-two 98, the vendor is intentionally, whereas contrasted with 5.1, there's kind of a either or, can be intentionally or recklessly, which is lower. So it actually is a lower burden than prosecuting aftershuffle essentially or any conduct that is described here is at the moment mental state of

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the person who had the

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: conduct, what was or what they think she had that time. Let's see further contrast and the actual penalties are the same goal so it's not more than two years or a fine of more than $2,000 those are untethicals And it's in 1824. Mirror was an enhanced section of 1702, subsection B and F. Let's see here. But, yeah, we kind of summarized what of training one of my initial comments was saying. Seemed to go as kind of gathering some of the sections in February and essentially compressing that into one statute here. There would be much of the contemplated is the same.

[Speaker 0]: And yeah in February we're having we've added the civil the private right of

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: action yes that does not appear on H5.1 there's no civil contract here

[Speaker 0]: I guess just a curiosity question about section one, something that I didn't know. So showing somebody else your ballot, let's say a young person goes to vote for the first time with their family, they walk out of the little booths, the young person showed their ballot, know, look, this is who I voted for. That person can be charged a thousand dollars for doing that?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Strictly speaking, yes. Let me just see if there's

[Speaker 0]: That's existing laws.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: That is existing law, and there's an interesting history. That's essentially an anti bribery provision. Was, there's similar laws in The United States that were flown about at the same time, having to do with trying to counteract the buying of those. So one of the ways you prove that I knew that the person satisfied this. The plaintiff's exchange, the person comes out and the liar of the vote would say, Prove to me you did it, how will that water washes of the Shanti power? That, again attests to how long that happens in practice but that was the kind of recent point. This type of statute that happened to see exactly what it was and folks I don't know what's the

[Speaker 0]: top of that. So periodic, any other questions?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So I guess I'm imagining that as we move forward with both bills there would be an opportunity at some point to harmonize what we're doing

[Unidentified Committee Member]: in a conference committee or something like that where you could agree with the house chair that this is duplicative and so we're gonna transport this provision in so everything's in one bill that we want and then the other one can fall by the wayside because otherwise I think we're digging into the governor to decide how to, you know, deal with the fact that they covered the same thing. Yeah. And it seems to me the fact that one has a right to right of action would likely mean that one would get me delivered, the other one would go through. If we're committed to that, it's probably a good idea to have a plan about how

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: we can do this. Well, it's not where you think I'd want.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, my initial thought was just since section two is what appears to be duplicative, just removing section two and keeping what we have in February as it is. They're passing just section one just to clarify that language. I think that's something I'll talk to.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Any other questions?

[Speaker 0]: No? All right thank you Tim. So maybe we are going into H5 at around eleven I think Michelle she may be

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: a few minutes late, but we

[Speaker 0]: can take a five minute break. Stop coming back around eleven people. Let's go

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: live.