Don’t count your chickens until you know they’re chickens

By Lynn LaFleur

VT Digger ran a story originally appearing in The Citizen about an election integrity talk for Town Clerks led by Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas (D-VT), U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-VT), and Congresswoman Becca Balint (D-VT). It’s a propaganda piece that deliberately avoids discussing the challenges facing Vermont’s election system that undermine its integrity. 

The article cites an earlier Welch quote (not from the event), saying “The ‘show your papers’ requirement is an attack on the freedom to vote.” This is, of course, absurd. No system is secure, especially one that demands citizens are free to vote only once and free to vote only in jurisdictions where they legally reside, if Clerks and other election officials have no means of independently verifying that limitation and those qualifications. And under Vermont’s system, they don’t because we do not require voter ID. 

Imagine you’re in a stadium full of people where alcohol is being served, and the rule is you have to be over 21 to get a drink, there is a limit of one drink per person for which you get a chit with your name on it, and the chits are not transferable. How well do you think that system will work, and how long do you think it will take before it breaks down if nobody is allowed to check IDs? Well, that’s how secure Vermont’s election system is. 

The panel members utilized a shady debate tactic of stating irrelevant facts as if they were solutions to this problem. 

The Secretary noted that “you trust your Town Clerks.” We do! The bartenders in that fictitious stadium could also be the most trustworthy bartenders on earth, but if they’re not allowed to check IDs, how much should we trust that they are operating in a system that ensures that they are not serving underage drinkers, or that the drink chits they are honoring actually belong to the people handing them in, or that some in the crowd are collecting unwanted chits from the teetotalers to consume multiple beverages? That’s the issue; the lack of a trustworthy system, not a lack of trust in the people running it. 

Brattleboro Town Clerk Hilary Francis is cited in the article saying, “…any work done with mail-in ballots or elections always has two election officials present.” This may be true of counting absentee ballots, but it is not true for the other critical aspects of casting a ballot: filling it out and turning it in. No election officials were present to verify that the ballots that they are counting were filled out by the voter to whom they are attributing the vote. And that’s the unmentioned problem that goes unquestioned by the reporter.

Francis also said, “To be mailed a ballot, you must be registered to vote,” as if that is a safeguard. But that’s not the issue. The issue is Vermont now mails ballots to everyone who is registered to vote (unless formally challenged) regardless of request and regardless of whether or not every person sent a ballot actually intends to participate in the election. Even in record high turnout elections 30-35% of registered voters don’t cast a ballot, and every one of those unclaimed, unwanted ballots is an opportunity for fraud. Fraud that election officials cannot detect, because Vermont doesn’t require voter ID.  (Not to mention what happens to the ballots that are undeliverable.)

Morristown Town Clerk Sara Haskins pointed out she uses standalone tabulators that “immediately reads, casts and counts paper ballots with no internet connection, to ensure security.” This is not a security measure at all. It may accurately count what appears on the ballots, but it does nothing to verify who filled out those ballots. The machine counts fraudulent votes as well as valid ones and makes no distinction.

Message to Clerks: Don’t count your chickens until you can confirm they are chickens!