 Welcome to ongoing general election coverage by Town Meeting Television. This is one of a series of forums. We're bringing you in advance of the general election in November. Town Meeting TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers all items that will be on your November ballot. Town Meeting TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and the issues that shape your local community. If you're watching this live, we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. Watch Town Meeting TV on Comcast Channel 1087, Burlington Telecom Channel 17 and 217, as well as online at youtube.com slash Town Meeting TV. I'm your moderator this evening. My name is Christine Lott. And here with me are candidates for Vermont Secretary of State. I have H. Brooke Page and Representative Sarah Copeland Hansis. Good evening. Hi, evening. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. We'll alternate who goes first. Please take about 90 seconds to answer. And why don't we start with introductions, though? Can I start with you, Representative Hansis? Absolutely. I am Sarah Copeland Hansis. I am an 18-year veteran of the Vermont House of Representatives. I represent Bradford Fairley and West Fairley. And most recently, I have served as chair of the House Government Operations Committee, which oversees all of the offices of the Secretary of State. I decided to run when Jim Kondos announced that he would be stepping down because I really feel that democracy is under threat with intentional misinformation and active voter suppression going on in other parts of the country, and now elections deniers. I think it's time that we really focus on strengthening democracy. And in order to do that, I think it's important to help Vermonters feel more confident on how to vote and on who they're voting for. So that's why, if I am elected Secretary of State, I will start to create a voter guide so that when you get your November ballot in the mail, you'll also get a guide, a listing of all the candidates, what they stand for, what they'll do if elected, their social media, their website, so that you can use the entire 45 days to find the candidate whose values most closely match your own. And then I also want to make sure that we bring back civics education in our school systems and indeed in our communities as well to help engage with Vermonters so that they understand how government works and how we know our elections are safe and fair. Thank you. Brooke, please introduce yourself. Very good. I'm Brooke Page from Washington, Vermont. The good Washington, not the bad one down in D.C. And I'm running for Secretary of State. This is not my first time after the rodeo running for Secretary of State. And I've run in the past because I was concerned about the propriety of our elections up until recently. My main concern was with open primaries, which have recreated this whole basket of troubles and confusion amongst the voters. More recently now with Universal Vote by Mail, we have compounded the confusion. The many people are now confused because we really run three different kinds of elections. The presidential election primary, the statewide primary, and then the general election. And each of these follows a different format, which is becoming increasingly confusing. Beyond that, the Secretary of State is also responsible for the Office of Professional Regulation, which has become an outsized monster that is creating a great deal of troubles for businesses and contractors here in the state. The archives is in disarray and it's become less accessible, especially since the archives took over the state library, which was in Mount Pealier and the collection has been divided. Further, I have been talking since I began running about the fact that Jim Kondos has done nothing as far as the educational aspect that was done when Douglass was in office. Well, let me, sorry to interrupt you, but that leads into our first question, is that what will be different for the people of the state because you've been elected to the position and what would you emulate or do differently on the heels of the outgoing Secretary? I'm gonna be repeating myself a little bit here. One of my biggest concerns is that we get some propriety in our election process. It's not only important that there's no cheating or nefarious things going on, but more importantly that people understand that we have a sound and fair election process. Many people do not. Many people that I talk to are so discouraged that they have given up on participating in politics and in the elections. They feel the whole thing has rigged somehow and I'm not really an advocate of going that far. I think there are things that are going on like open primaries where there's a lot of intrigue and Democrats sneaking over and grabbing Republican ballots to try to sully the Republicans general election ballot and there's some on the other side too with Republicans far less statewide and more local. So my greatest desire is for us to have a safe, sound, understandable election process that everybody is excited about participating in. Thank you for that. And Representative Copeland-Hansis, what will be different for the people of the state or what would you do similar or different to our former Secretary? Thanks. So under Jim Kondo's leadership, we've done a lot of work to make sure that we have removed barriers to people being able to vote. I can't tell you how many times over 18 years running for my house seat, I have stood out on election day and had somebody come out really frustrated and say, I've lived here for seven years and I know I'm registered to vote here but they turned me away. And so I was really pleased to support not only same day voter registration so that I could say to that person, you can go back in there and register to vote right now and you will cast your ballot and sign out an affidavit that you do live here but also to support automatic voter registration so that when somebody comes to Vermont gets their driver's license, they are automatically registered to vote. I'd like to see us continue to expand automatic voter registration because there are lots of people who come to Vermont who want to participate as citizens who maybe don't intend to get a driver's license in which case I think we should have other avenues of automatically registering people to vote. I've been really proud to support Vote by Mail. We did it in 2020 in response to COVID so that people didn't have to choose between their own safety and being able to participate in our democratic process. And I'm pleased that it has been expanded and made permanent. I also want to make sure that going forward we bring back that education and outreach position that used to exist when Deb Markowitz was secretary and she helped to create materials to help people understand how government works and how elections work. Well, so another job of the Secretary of State is to oversee election security. What more do you think needs to be done or to encourage widespread voting? You were just talking about that a little bit but also to ensure people's participation in the democratic process. Yeah, I think the biggest tragedy out there is when somebody who is rightfully should be allowed to vote is restricted from voting. We live in a democracy and the point of a democracy is that you have a contest of ideas and if your ideas are popular with more people you will get elected. The key to moving forward and to increasing participation in democracy I think really lies in helping people really understand how democracy works. And so that civics education is not just, oh, there are three branches of government and the legislative branch does this and the judicial branch does that. No, I want to make sure that when we do this education and outreach that we're doing it in a way that helps people understand how do you take a concern or a problem or a frustration that you have that you're seeing maybe many of your friends have as well and how do you come together and affect change in a democratic government? And when people understand that democracy is supposed to work for you and here's how you can do that I think it really empowers and indeed inspires people to participate. Thank you. And so Brooke, what more would you do to encourage widespread voting or ensure people's participation in the democratic process? I think that we need to have a lot more discussions like this that part of the problem we have now with universal vote by mail and ballots being mailed out 45 days in advance and people being able to immediately vote is that many people see it as like filing their contest form for publishers clearinghouse or something and get it in right away and this is not a danger but a problem in that many people are just voting for whoever has a D or an R or an I after their name without really understanding what the individuals who they're voting for stand for. And I mean, we really should be encouraging last minute voting so that I mean the closer we get to the election day, the better informed that people are to make an informed decision as to who they want to vote for. In fact, I've been involved in some legal wrangling with Jim Kondo's and all of this early voting kind of goes against the Vermont Constitution. The Vermont Constitution specifically says that election day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. So in our Constitution, we have enshrined an election day. If people are sending in their ballots early, oh well and good but they should have an opportunity if they've made a mistake to cure their ballot, to go to the town clerk's office or on election day, go to the polling place and have their sealed up early ballot certificate still available and if they realize that somebody they voted for is a little bit of a rascal that they'd have the opportunity to have that ballot, they can't ask for it back but they can have it marked defective and vote again with the choices they now believe are proper. Thank you for that. I wanna ask you next if you support non-citizen voting. I do not. I think that citizenship is a privilege. I think that just like so many other things, it needs to be earned. It needs to be, you know, there's a process and it's not hard to become a citizen if you go through all of the steps. I know I am a docent down at the state house and one of the several times that I've been there when one of the federal judges from up here in Burlington has the swearing in of citizens down there at the state house. It's a marvelous thing to see that people come out and they're beaming with pride for having jumped through the hoops if you like or going through all of the steps in order to earn their citizenship. And so, you know, things that are too easily obtained or too little appreciated and I think that, you know, everyone that's here legally should have the opportunity to become a citizen but I think those who have for various reasons decided not to become a citizen are certainly welcome to stay with us but I don't know if they should be able to have the opportunity to select who our leaders are, the leaders of the citizens of the state or of the nation. Thank you for that and Representative Copeland hands us to you support non-citizen voting. I absolutely do. I was chair of the committee that passed non-citizen voting for the communities of Montpelier and Winooski. We took a very careful look at that proposed charter change that is within the bounds of what a municipality might ask for. We took a lot of testimony and I was really impressed with a lot of the reasons why both the community as a whole and individuals who are not yet citizens wanted to be able to vote in their local elections. There are oftentimes, Mr. Page says it's very easy to become a citizen, there are oftentimes when it takes several years, in fact, sometimes many years for somebody to become a citizen of the United States. There are also scenarios in which someone may have left a country and would have to renounce their citizenship there in order to become a United States citizen and they may still be in the process of choosing whether they want to let go of their birthright citizenship in order to become a United States citizen. So we asked the question, is it legal for a community to open voting on local matters to people who are not citizens but who are permanent residents of that community and indeed with the constitutional scholars we talked to, with the historians, it is in fact within the bounds of the legislature to grant that right to communities who want to enact non-citizen voting. Thank you for that. A little background on the where we're at in Vermont on that. The next role question is about protecting democracy, something that has already come up in your intros. So our clerks, do you believe that town clerks are prepared to handle potential election tampering and how would you assist with our clerks in the state? We'll start with you. So I've been spending a lot of time over the last several weeks reviewing some of the processes that are in place currently in the Secretary of State's office and I have been really pleased to see the extent to which the current office has regular communication with our local clerks and I feel really good about the strength of our local, the strength of our elections based on how our local clerks are administering them. We have a population roughly the size of Boston and we have 240 something town clerks who are duly elected local elections administrators whose job it is and indeed who their sworn duty is to execute our elections fairly. And so I feel really confident when we share real time information with our local clerks and make sure that our elections team in the Secretary of State's office has that open communication that we can head off any future problems and I think it's always gonna be a work in progress but I have a lot of faith in our mighty elections team at the office and in the wonderful men and women who serve as town clerks across the state. Thank you and Brooke, do you feel that town clerks are prepared to handle potential elections tampering? How would you assist them? I think that the town clerks do an excellent job in operating the elections in the state of Vermont. I think that their town clerks and the boards of civil authority are people that are dedicated to preserving elections here in Vermont. One thing that I think is missed is that the Secretary of State's office does not have any statutory authority to investigate or enforce the election laws and I've seen letter after letter come out with Jim Conda's signature on it saying just that and I think that that may be problematic and I think that we need to, the greatest thing and I said this before, the greatest thing is to be able to have the voters and the citizens of the state had confidence in the voting process that we have and not be reduced to sloganing or to rumors that in most many cases are just not true. Well, in that same vein, we've talked about American democracy being under threat. What do you think the greatest challenges are and how would we address those at a local level? Well, I think the greatest problem we have is that, and I'm a Republican, Sarah's a Democrat, but I think especially here in Vermont and it's real much of the country, the game has kind of been rigged to one side, if you like, not that there's any tampering with the ballots or anything, but that the media is overwhelmingly favoring the more progressive or liberal agenda, that many of the other aspects of things we've seen most recently, issues with the FBI apparently taking sides, okay to talk all about this Russian collusion carrying on, but God forbid anybody would talk about Mr. Biden's son's laptop before the election and so there just seems to be a pull to one side that the conservatives are really having an uphill battle and trying to equal the balances for the election so that people get a good balanced understanding of what the parties and the individual politicians stand for. Thank you for that. Representative Copeland-Hanzes, what do you see as the greatest challenge to democracy and what we need to address at a local level? I think the greatest challenge to democracy is the proliferation of misinformation about stolen elections. We live in a democracy where if your ideas are popular with the electorate, you will be elected, has nothing to do with media bias, it has nothing to do with letting those people vote, has nothing to do with sloganeering or trickery. Plain at the end of the day, democracy is about expressing your ideas in a way that resonates with the voters and I think the greatest threat is this really callous misinformation about stolen elections because when people believe that their vote doesn't count or doesn't matter, it makes it harder for them to want to participate which is why I will come back to my education and outreach ideas because I think it's really important to open up the doors so to speak and let people understand how our government works and this is how we know that your vote counts. I've participated in recounts for house races in Vermont that were decided by less than a handful of votes. I have looked at each and every one of those ballots and I have seen that each and every one of those ballots really did matter and the people who didn't vote could have swayed it one way or the other and I think that's really exciting and I wanna make sure that everyone out there understands how to make their vote count. Thank you. This is a good segue into our next question about partisan politics. So the Secretary of State's office is in many ways a very important non-partisan office yet it's an elected position. You're running in different parties. I'll start with you, Sarah. Why is it important that we continue to elect our Vermont Secretary of State? So I think it's really important because at the end of the day, when anybody holds a position in public office, you are beholden to whoever put you into that office, right? So if you want a Secretary of State who is responsive to what Vermonters want, what Vermonters think, what Vermonters need, then we should elect a Secretary of State. There are other places where the Secretary of State serves at the pleasure of the governor or at the pleasure of another entity in the state government that appoints them. I think it's important that I answer to Vermonters and if you think I'm doing a good job, hopefully you'll elect me or re-elect me in the future and if I'm not, you'll elect somebody else. And so I think that while there isn't partisanship in the way the office functions because we have a lot of really straight ministerial functions that need to be neutral and non-partisan, I think it's absolutely appropriate that we have these conversations within a partisan realm because I think Vermonters wanna know what the people they elect believe and care about and are passionate about. Thank you and so Brooke, why is it important that we continue to elect our Vermont Secretary of State? I think not just the Secretary of State but also the State Treasurer, the Auditor of Accounts and the Attorney General are really ministerial positions. Shouldn't be partisan positions but our current group of folks serving those positions are somewhat political and outspoken in politics. I know Mr. Kondos has made specific statements about various national figures on the Republican side and I think that's not a good thing. I think that to be clear, I don't think that there's any stolen elections here in Vermont. I don't think there's a lot of nefarious going on beyond the fact that the primaries are kind of become this round delay of intrigue and gamesmanship and but as far as the general election and when it gets down to counting the ballots I think everything is fairly tidy and that's a good thing and it's something that people really have to believe more than they do because a lot of people think, I mean, I've heard a lot of wild things that I know to clearly not be true and when I'm told these things, you know, I'm always the first to speak out about it, you know, and so information as Sarah said, education of the young folks and I think information dissemination about civics and about how our election system work is the best tonic for curing these ills. Let me, I think we have time for one more question. So there are big issues like climate change, immigration reform, racial justice and healthcare that touch the lives of all Vermonters. How do you use the office of the Secretary of State to improve the lives of all Vermonters in light of such large, complex political and social issues? We'll start with you again, Brooke. Thanks. I think that the various individuals who serve in these different offices need to stay in their lane. Okay, I think that I heard Beth Pierce talking all about social justice and climate justice and all of this. Yet that's not really the definition of her job. Likewise, the Secretary of State basically has four and I would say five responsibilities and none of those touched dramatically on the issues that you have mentioned. I think if we run a proper election so that the people can hear the opinions on those subjects from the politicians, then the Secretary of State, if he or she is able to run a safe and balanced election, that's the job. Likewise, office professional responsibility, if we make it easy for people to conduct business in the state, that's the job. There's other problems in archives and things like that. And the Secretary of State wears many hats and so it's an office people don't really understand as well as they should, yet they're out here voting for Sarah or me and trying to part the waters and figure out what's going on. Thank you and so the last question to you then is how would you use the office to improve the lives of Vermonters in light of those complex issues? So there are probably a dozen little ways I can think of that an office led by somebody who's passionate about these issues might look different than an office led by somebody who's indifferent to some of them. I think the most easy to describe and easy to understand though really is about empowering people to elect leaders who will act on the things that they're passionate about whether that's racial justice whether that's LGBTQ rights whether that's climate action. And fostering a climate that allows candidates to get their information out in front of voters and indeed facilitating that by making sure that every candidate has the opportunity to offer a hundred words that will go out in that voter guide so that Vermonters know what they care about and what they'll do if elected are really good ways to empower Vermonters to make change in these complicated issues. Thank you and so we're almost out of time here. I wanna give you each about 30 seconds though for a closing statement. Great, does that mean I get to go first? Yes, excellent. So thank you so much for the time tonight. It's been really great to be here with you. I am really excited to bring my 18 years of experience in elected office to the role of Secretary of State to defend democracy, to strengthen the way we regulate professionals, to indeed take a deep dive into our state archives and make sure that those are working as we intend them to and to continue to work on this business portal that we have for people who are starting a new business in Vermont. The Secretary of State's office has done a great deal of work in making it easier for folks to start a business and I look forward to diving in and putting my shoulder to the wheel on that. Thank you so much. Once again, I'm Brooke Page. I'm running for Secretary of State here in Vermont. I think that being a little bit older, I see this as my swan song in politics and also my beginning to be real honest, but I don't view this as being a job that I'm looking to use. It's a stepping stone for a higher office later on. If I can become Secretary of State and straighten out the troubles that are in elections, in office professional regulation, in archives, renew the educational function of the Secretary of State's job in two years or maybe four years, then I will consider that I've done a good job and pass the baton on to someone else. Thank you so much for that and thank you both for your time this evening. It's great to hear what you hope to bring to this role for voters. Thank you for tuning into town meeting television and our ongoing coverage of the November general election. You can find this in more forums at www.ch17.tv. Don't forget to vote on or before November 8th. This year ballots will be mailed to all registered voters in the state. To confirm you are registered and will be receiving a ballot at home, visit the Secretary of State's online portal, mvp.vermont.gov. Thank you for watching and sharing town meeting TV.