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By Guy Page
As the 2025-2026 legislative session begins this week, the Vermont State Legislature is expected to take up the election challenge raised by Bennington-1 House candidate Bruce Busa, along with disenfranchised Pownal voters and the Boards of Civil Authority (BCA) in Readsboro and Stamford.
The challenge stems from voter checklist errors that resulted in Pownal residents receiving ballots for the wrong House district, an issue brought to light after the November 5 election, in which Democrat Jonathan Cooper unofficially defeated Republican Bruce Busa by 23 votes. Busa also came in a very close second in the 2022 race.
The Legislature’s website lists Cooper as the sitting legislator for Bennington 1, comprising the southern Bennington County towns of Woodford, Pownal, Stamford, Readsboro, and Searsburg. If either the Legislature or the voters choose Busa, the already enhanced Vermont Republican House caucus will gain another vote, bolstering Gov. Phil Scott’s ability to successfully veto Democratic bills.
Indeed, the initial General Election results and a subsequent recount both declared Cooper the winner of the Bennington-1 race. However, discrepancies uncovered after the election revealed that the voter checklist in Pownal had not been properly updated following the 2022 Act 89 reapportionment, causing 56 voters in the Bennington-1 district to receive Bennington-5 ballots and 14 voters in the Bennington-5 district to receive Bennington-1 ballots, Bennington County GOP Chair Joe Gervais said to VDC.
Gervais said a December 24, 2024, report from the Vermont Attorney General’s Office confirmed these findings and raised significant concerns. According to the report:
“It is the opinion of this Office that 56 voters registered in the Bennington-1 House District received the Bennington-5 House District ballot and were unable to properly cast a vote in the race for the Bennington-1 House District seat. The winner of the certified recount won by a margin of 23 votes, meaning the number of registered voters unable to vote in the Bennington-1 election (56) exceeds the margin of victory (23).”
The report was submitted to the Vermont House of Representatives for review under 17 V.S.A. § 2605(b)(1), empowering the Legislature to resolve election disputes. Historical precedent shows these processes can take weeks to conclude.
Bruce Busa, the Republican candidate in the Bennington-1 race, emphasized the importance of addressing the error: “The most reasonable solution is to allow the 56 affected voters the opportunity to cast their ballots in the proper Bennington-1 House race,” he said in a recent statement. The Vermont Secretary of State has recommended a re-election of the entire district.
Gervais echoed Busa’s sentiments:
“It’s deeply troubling that errors in the voter checklist disenfranchised dozens of voters in both the 2022 and 2024 elections following the Act 89 reapportionment. In both contests, candidate Busa lost by less than two dozen votes. I urge the Legislature to provide these voters with the chance to vote in the correct House district for the 2025-2026 term.”
The Legislature may choose to simply vote to resolve the election itself – in which case the Democrat majority might be expected to vote in favor of Cooper. Or, it could abstain for voting and instead recommend a revote – either of the 56 voters (as Busa recommends) or the entire district (as the Secretary of State recommended in November).
‘The Vermont Legislature’s decision on this matter will determine whether affected voters in Pownal will have an opportunity to properly cast their ballots for their district representative,” Gervais said.
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Categories: politics
This points to the importance of election integrity. So did the documentary Kill Chain that the Democratic party was behind in 2020. This official trailer to it is a 2 min. clip is worth everyone’s attention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwSVN_dgio8&t=47s
Time Stamp 1:36 and 1:09 of Absolute Proof that was a Republican film highlighting election integrity concerns are worth a 2 min. peek, too. https://frankspeech.com/v/3eftp
I also encourage a return to recorded votes on the bills passed at Montpelier. Voters need to be able to see how their legislators voted on matters that concern them. There’s not many of them in the 2023-24 session – check vthope.net/24bills.html for an overview.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS and our FREEDOM and UNITY depend upon election integrity and having a voice in how we are governed that can’t afford to be diluted, amended, and scrambled.
For the legislature to decide a winner in this race is to ABSOLUTELY disenfranchise 56 voters….which is an absolutely unacceptable option. For the SOS to call for a revote for the entire district is also unacceptable, it smacks strongly of hoping to muddy or rig the outcome. The only district that should perhaps have a revote is the district that had 56 votes wrongly cast, if the margin in that race supports it. The obvious answer is to allow those who were NOT allowed their vote to HAVE it, any others had their chance and cast their vote…no redo for them! Go Bruce go! Wishing you the very best in your push for the only decent and logical resolution to this issue.
My question is ,who made this mistake?
The Sec. of States office or locally?
The American First organization in Washington has legal staff available to support GOP candidates in election fraud or mistakes such as this.
Bruce ,you should contact them if you had already not done so.
Never give an inch.
Fight! fight! Fight!
Good luck.
The Pownal board of civil authority mistakenly had 70 voters in the wrong district following the 2022 Act 89 reapportionment, 56 of those should have been in Bennington-1, 14 should have been in Bennington-5.
it was apparently an honest goof by the locals, interpreting the new redistricting map.
Vermont GOP, keep picking away recover one seat at a time, and you’ll save the state from the progressive nonsense !!
“Mistakenly”. Yeah, sure. For those who believe that, how’s that bridge in Brooklyn you bought working out for you? Probably better than the guy from Brooklyn you all bought into years’ ago.
And how does the “legislature” get to decide IF the voters of Pownal get to properly cast their ballots???? Isn’t that the right of each and every American? “Fight, fight, fight” – darn RIGHT!
Election Integrity is foundational to our democracy. It is important that our votes are accurately handled and honored.
I recommend this 2 min. official trailer to the Democrat documentary – Kill Chain from 2020 – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12041084/?ref_=tt_mv_desc
In the Republicans’ Absolute Proof documentary from 2022, I recommend time stamps 1:36 with Mary Ranning depicting international hacking at time stamp 1:09 and a Dominion story from Antrim County in Michigan. Again 2 min. well worth your time – https://frankspeech.com/v/3eftp
I also encourage the State House to ensure that voters can access information on how their legislators voted. That was only minimally done in the 23-24 session. Most votes were done in caucus where how legislators voted could be hidden from the public. VTHope.net/24bills.html shows this.
Protect our Constitutional Rights and allow FREEDOM and UNITY to continue to reign in Vermont. Encourage all legislators and voters to stand strong for election integrity.
seems like an easy fix, let them vote in the correct district and there you have it, don’t give up Bruce, what are they afraid of?
Who gets to decide this? Many agree here as I would that it ought to be the 70 who got sent the right ballot. How quickly can it be arranged? Why didn’t it happen in the past 2 months. Will legislators take over and weigh in with their political weights so the matter is settled asap? Might they vote to give the 70 voters their ballot and have it submitted within 2 weeks?