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By Guy Page
It’s just a one-town sample, but the Town of Bennington’s March 5 Town Meeting returns wasn’t good news for advocates of non-citizen and teenage voting.
In recent years, Burlington, Winooski and Montpelier changed their charters to allow non-citizen voting in local elections. The Legislature decisively approved the charter changes, even overriding a veto by Gov. Phil Scott. The Vermont Supreme Court upheld a Republican challenge to the laws.
Bennington is college town, represented by Democrats only in both Senate and House. The eponymous county seat of politically blue Bennington County last November voted just as enthusiastically against Pres. Trump and for Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Becca Balint as the rest of the state.
But on March 5, Town Meeting voters rejected non-citizen voting by 75 votes and youth voting by almost 2-1.
It’s not like Bennington voters were in an ornery ‘vote no on everything’ mood. They passed the town budget by more than 2-1. A land use charter change and even a short-term rental tax passed by almost 2-1. Bennington voters walked into Town Meeting in an agreeable mood.
Except about the two proposed charter changes.
Article 2, non citizen voting, failed 1034-1109. Voters were asked to amend the town charter as follows:
Requirements for Legal Resident Voters Who Are Not Citizens.
(a) A legal resident who is not a citizen of the United States shall be a legal voter at a local Town of Bennington election if the individual meets the following qualifications: is a legal resident of the United States, is not less than 18 years of age, has taken the Voter’s Oath, resides in the Town of Bennington as residency is defined in 17 V.S.A. § 2122, and has registered to vote with the Board of Registration of Voters no later than the deadline established by Vermont law for that election or meeting.
(b) For purposes of this section, a legal resident of the United States means any non-citizen who resides in the United States on a permanent or indefinite basis in compliance with federal immigration laws. (c) This section does not change a non-citizen’s ability to vote in any state or federal election. (d) A legal resident voter who is not a citizen may cast a ballot only for local officers and local public questions specific to the Town of Bennington.
Article 3, youth voting, failed 724-1418. It read: Shall the Charter of the Town of Bennington be amended….as follows:
Youth Voters
a) Youth Voters shall be legal voters in local Town of Bennington elections.
(b) For purposes of this section, Youth Voter means a person who is 16. to 18 years of age and is otherwise qualified to vote in Town elections pursuant to 17 V.S.A. chapter 43, subchapter 1, and under the provisions of this Charter.
(c) This section does not change a Youth Voter’s ability to vote in any state or federal election.
(d) A Youth Voter may cast a ballot only for local officers and local public questions specific to the Town of Bennington.
VDC is unaware of any other 2025 proposed charter changes expanding voter rights to non-adults or non-citizens. It’s possible the threat of a gubernatorial veto that would be upheld, this time, dissuaded organizers in other towns.
Brattleboro is the only other Vermont town allowing youth voters. In 2024, 20 of the 47 registered 16-17 years olds voted at Town Meeting on March 5.
2024 turnout for non-citizen voters Montpelier (13 of 18 registered), Burlington (62 of 102), and Winooski (11 of 61) was reported by Vermont Public.
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Categories: Town Meeting
So Bennington CAN do something right once-in-a-while. Color me impressed.
Bennington is run primarily by leftist lunatics who single-handedly transformed that town from a summer tourist destination to a rundown junkie gangsta hole. They destroyed Real Estate property values & ran out most locally run businesses.
For you conservatives who still insist there is no “affordable” housing in VT – try Bennington……locales with tenements and heroin addicts shooting up in public usually have a myriad of “affordable” housing. And again, the GOVERNMENT has no obligation or right to supply anyone with housing unless you live under COMMUNIST rule & everyone lives in hovels. PAY your own WAY.
As for the ballot issues? Bennington will simply try it again on the next election, making sure to better prep their party’s machine vote to do as they are damn told.
The woman of a thousand words is back, bad mouthing Bennington Vermont. Stop the bonding of affordable housing with taxpayer money and if you do not build it, they will not come.
Bennington deserves to be “bad-mouthed” or alternatively known as justifiable criticism as per just a few of the examples I provided. Take a gander at Bennington’s Facebook pages and you’ll find HUNDREDS of residents “bad-mouthing” the town for good reason. Maybe even “thousands” of them!
Vermont has fallen. And many who moved out in the past couple of years just simply aged out of the war to try to salvage her. Even the most courageous warriors grow weary. Life is short. Further, watching faux “conservatives” on VDC eat their own by trying to discourage others to express their opinions should they differ from their own on topics concerning animal cruelty or women’s equality through intimidation & incendiary comments —- are merely the same tactics democrats use; nothing less. It’s ineffective & uncultured…though as a native New Yawka I did enjoy giving it right back tenfold.
Vermont has changed because the USA has changed because the world has changed. Chronically attempting to perpetually pretend it’s still 1965 is futile. Meanwhile, freedom of speech is apparently still a thing in N.H. Live free or die. And humane treatment of animals and the consistently presumed equality between & women isn’t debated by most adults who aren’t academically challenged.
BTW, you don’t seem to mind when the male posters on VDC are chatty. Wonder why….
REACTIONARY DISTURBER brings out the opinions of many people. The sad fact the opinion expressed previous about Bennington is true. The word Fascism ,with the merger of public and private funds, is the more appropriate word. A coy dog at every house will chase away the mouse.
So, should only certain opinion(s) matter & should be heard? And who makes those decisions? No one on here should ever be playing a FREE SPEECH OBSTRUCTIONIST.
Meanwhile, Bennington is indeed a shadow of its former self & it was all done with INTENT, just as the destruction of numerous other blue cities and towns was executed across the nation. Bennington joined them with glee and the ruins there now are evidence for all to see. GREAT JOB, MONKS! Keep up the good work!
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