And legislators don’t want to solve it.

by Rob Roper

S.298 is supposed to be an election integrity measure, protecting voters from “…bribery, intimidation, threats, coercion, or other means…” by those attempting to influence how — or preventing them entirely — from voting at a polling place. Sounds good. But here’s the problem: two thirds of Vermonters no longer vote at a polling place. Since the Vermont legislature moved to a system of mailing ballots to all voters on the checklist 66 percent of voters cast their ballots absentee. In other words, our kitchen tables are now the primary polling place – and this bill does nothing to protect these voters from intimidation, threats, coercion, etcetera.

This glaring fact came out in committee debate when Representative V.L. Coffin (R-Weathersfield) said,

What I’m worried about is with universal vote by mail there’s nothing in here that protects someone at home from any intimidation to vote. Whether you have people going door to door to get people to make sure people fill out their ballots, or whatever. There’s nothing in here to protect people at home. Say there’s an abusive relationship where people are being intimidated. There’s no protection there at all for them. If this is about purity of elections, how do we, as far as interference, how do we know that person actually filled [their ballot] out, and not the abusive member [of the relationship].

The answer was provided by Representative Sandy Pinsonault (R-Dorset), who was also the long serving Dorset Town Clerk and awarded Town Clerk of the Year in 2009, “You don’t.”

And that’s the problem with universal vote by mail: election officials have no idea who actually filled out the ballots they are counting. They have no idea if two thirds of the ballots they are counting were the result of intimidation, coercion, threats, bribery or fraud. That’s a problem.

Coffin continued with THE question, “If we’re going to mail everybody a ballot, how do we make sure people are not being intimidated? That they are not being coerced? That’s troublesome to me.” Yeah, me too! But not to the sponsors of this bill.

Representative Chea Waters Evans (D-Charlotte), the lead person shepherding S.298 toward passage, moved swiftly to shut down this conversation.

The point is to protect people from obstructing others from voting at a polling place, and it’s keeping it really tight to those places. Whatever happens at other people’s homes and whatever happens with universal mail in ballots, I don’t think it’s relevant to what we’re talking about…. If a domestic partner is forcing someone to vote the way they want them to, I don’t think it’s the same thing, and I really would object to even including any different language in this bill regarding that.

Well, la dee da!

Of course, it’s not just the potential of an abusive partner influencing or stealing someone’s vote, with a mailed ballot it could also be a door-knocking candidate or campaign operative, an activist, a boss….

Which begs the question, is S.298 “solving” a problem that A) doesn’t exist and B) is for a voting system that no longer exists for an increasing majority of Vermont voters, while actively ignoring the issue of greatly expanded potential intimidation, coercion, and bribery in the new system? And, if so (and it is so), what’s the point of this legislation?

Representative Pinsonault shared a story of attempted coercion at her polling place when a husband insisted on “helping” his wife fill out her ballot. Because this took place at a supervised polling place, Pinsonault was able to intercede, separate the husband from the wife, ensure that the wife was allowed to fill out her ballot in the privacy of the voting booth, and cast her ballot in secrecy. So, attempted voter intimidation at a polling place is already not viable because it is a supervised system.

Voter intimidation does happen,” said Pinsonault. “It probably happened at home, too.” Not probably. Assuredly.

Vermont’s universal vote by mail system cannot stop it. It expands exponentially the opportunities for it. And the legislators pushing S.298 have no interest in putting any security provisions in place to protect against it. In fact, repeating the words of Representative Waters Evans, they “really would object to even including any different language in this bill regarding that.”

What does that tell you?

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com