 So, Senate government operations, it is Tuesday, March 16th. I had to look at my calendar and what we're going to do first is Senator Corey Parent has an amendment to S-15, the elections bill that we passed this morning and I know committee, I do apologize because I know you talked about this on Thursday or Friday and I was not able to be here and I apologize. At the time when we were talking about it, we said we wanted to wait for you to be back before we took any action. Oh, okay. Because you always see things that others of us don't and you're the reporter of the bill. I mean, it's been your baby. So, Senator Parent, do you want to, first of all, yeah, okay, let's do this first so that Senator Parent can go back to his afternoon to the committee. So, do you want to, I understand there's a couple of changes from what is in the calendar and Amaran did email that to us and I don't know if it's posted on the website. It was emailed to us. I was just asking if it has also been posted. I don't know. It has been posted. Okay, thank you. It's available. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I think the email was just sent to you and I, Senator White and Gail. So, okay, so to open it up and while everyone's opening up, I'll start. Yeah, please do. Basically what the amendment changes in here, we're taking into account the conversation we had late last week with the amendment to further refine and remove some, you know, some red flags for folks on the committee. We, another change to the amendment is we removed instead of naming the group, so who would be appointed. We did for representatives of municipalities to be appointed by the Secretary of State's election division, as well as two other two members represent the interests of voters appointed by the Speaker of the House, and two members represent the interests of voters appointed by the Committee on Committees. We did this, you know, we originally had named VPurg and a few other groups, but that raised some concern. So we felt making that change while we had this election time was worth it. Just a few other language changes. One, Senator Rahm on the bomb page three, the impact vote by mail would have on a access to voting among those who have been historically been disenfranchised in populations that have historically had low voter turnout. We added that because we said groups that had historically low voter turnout, but Senator Rahm correctly pointed out that that might not because of their evolution and, you know, was something that, you know, we might have had laws in place to stop that. So we cleaned up that language a little. And then I think there was just, I think that's pretty much of the changes. There were a few other changes. I can't find them right now. And I don't know if I'm just looking over them quickly. I made this morning. I think we said we originally it was on page three, line 12. It's not highlighted, but we did talk about whether universal vote by mail should be expanded, include the primary. And originally we had general election in there because Amron felt if something happened to the bill, it should should still be in the study committee and then talking with some folks who are interested in the S15 as a whole recommended that that language come out. So so we took that out. I think ultimately that's the gist of the changes from last Thursday. Obviously, Senator White, you weren't here when we presented it. Ultimately, at a high level, what my goal here was is to establish the study committee to look at Taming Day and not just vote by mail, but ways to increase voter turnout. And that could include changing the day or making it a state holiday. There there's leeway for the committee. The so we I'm also looking, we also as discussion with this group do have the report due late 2022. I thought maybe July 2022, you know, there's a lot of timing. Our big I think the discussion we had last week, our goal would be to have information before the 23 session, 2023 session. So we could make changes and we're not held off, you know, four or five years before any changes happen. And the other big piece of the amendment is where towns choose to vote by mail for Taming Day can choose to. In the meantime, those who choose not to and have Australian ballot will also need to mail the postcards that we did for the primary because I think, you know, again, that my goal is to increase voter participation on elections that historically see teens or 20, you know, percent of turnout, you know, we talked this morning, you know, you talk this morning about turnout and 60 percent. That'd be a high watermark for town meeting days, and we'd love to see that. So I, you know, I still want to continue to push the envelope a little bit to increase participation in the coming years. Thank you. So what I'd like to do the way I'd like to approach this, I think, is because there's two very distinctive parts here. There's the first one that would require municipalities to mail out ballots. I'd like to address that first and then look at the study instead of mail out absentee request forms, not mail out absentee request forms. Yes. So I got it. I here's my feeling about this. I don't know if the rest of you have weighed in on this in your discussion before, so I'm going to assume that some of you have made your feelings known, known here, and I'm going to tell you what my feeling is on this. I don't think we can do this without much discussion from the town clerks and the town select boards, because this would be a pretty substantial cost to some of the towns. And they have the option to do it. I do not like this, this provision. I think that we leave that to the towns. And if they choose to send out ballot, I mean, postcards. That's fine. But without more discussion from the town clerks and the who run their town elections, I don't feel comfortable doing it. And I did get a letter, a long letter from Carol Dawes today stating that from the Clerks Association. So Will, do you want to weigh in on that part of it? I would just agree with you, Senator White. I think it's something that clearly needs input from the town clerks and other folks at the municipal level before imposing that kind of mandate. It's a significant mandate. There are a lot of towns who conduct their local elections by Australian ballot would be required to send an application under the amendment. And the other part of it is that some towns do part of their is by Australian ballot. And Padme, for example, we do our just the election of our officers by Australian ballot, but everything else is done. So we'd have to send we would have to send out a postcard to everybody just because we do the officers. Senator Rom. Madam Chair, did Carol only intend to communicate her concerns to you? Or is it something that we can also I can forward the letter to everybody? I can't do it right now, OK, because I'm on my device and I only have one device with me. Yeah, Senator Palmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Was that only her opinion? No, I don't know if it was or not. But even if if if it was only her opinion, then we certainly need to hear some from some other town clerks. I think it's premature to do this. It might be that in a year of the town clerks all come in and say, hey, that's a great idea. Let's do it. But we haven't heard from the town clerks. That's my point. So yes, we haven't we haven't had time. Would you suggest then that this whole first section can be struck and that we take it up in the house and that this house be something that takes I'm not going to suggest that the house take anything up. I'm going to suggest that I oppose this this section. That's what I'm saying. Yes, Anthony, I was just going to say, if we had moved this forward, we would certainly hear a lot from town clerks in the process. Turns out not hearing from them beforehand. The House would certainly hear from them loud and clear if we move this forward. So yeah, so. Is there it could is there any agreement? Yes, Corey, Senator, I've talked to a few town clerks and I think, you know, there's 251 and you're going to have 251 different opinions. You know, my own town clerk supports vote by mail and, you know, talk to obviously got some pressure because I just work upstairs. I'm sitting upstairs for my town clerk as we speak from folks to be able to talk to me about this. And she goes, look, Corey's right. We had huge turnout changes. And if the goals increase voter participation, you know, that's that's a good piece. And it really wasn't that much work for the town extra work and the cost was not that high. So it's you know, I I hear you and I hear other towns. But I think town clerks, I think also opposed same day voter registration a few years ago and and we went with that. So. Yep, I agree. But I do think that we should take some testimony on. This is a major change and I believe we should take additional testimony on it. And I would say that those towns who think that it is important can do it. So anyway, that I'm will I want to get to the other part also. I appreciate it. One last comment. I just want to say, you know, you did take a lot of testimony from town clerks. You took testimony from town clerks for two or three months in the preparation of the underlying bill. And everybody agreed that the approach that the underlying bill is taking is the right first step. And I don't think had any appetite for a mandate on towns. So, Ron. Well, so I think that, you know, I know we don't have just funny money coming from the federal government, but if there is a year where we know that we've just made a substantial change in a pandemic, we're making a change for next year's, you know, next next time's general election going forward. And in the interim, there's a lot of possibility for confusion. You know, I would support the state potentially paying for these postcards for the first time just so people don't get confused. And the only thing I said, Senator White, when you weren't here is to me, it's like putting up a new stop sign and having the orange flags on it so that people know, hey, this is a new change and we need you to be guided through this change. So something, you know, undemocratic doesn't happen, that people get confused and miss this opportunity to understand how their elections are going to be run, all three of them differently. So that I do think it would be good to appropriate money and help towns send this postcard out for March. Well, first, I don't know that we know that there's money to be appropriated. We've asked for eight hundred thousand one time money just to implement the changes we've already made. And that has not been appropriated yet. So we don't know that there's money here. So I would like us to Senator Clarkson, you had one comment. Yeah, I guess, given that this is in the in a proposal, this is just for the town meeting piece, right? That just for the town meeting vote that we're looking at. Yes. Right. So while we're talking, maybe Gail could be inviting Carol to to test. No, we we do not have time. If we're going to take testimony on this, we're really going to take testimony on it. We're not going to just take testimony from Carol. I think that if if we are serious about implementing this, then we need to take testimony. Well, I hate to say it, but given that we have it in front of us, but we could certainly delight. There's no reason we don't have to do a third reading tomorrow. We could do third reading Thursday. OK, all right. Anthony, I mean, I'm just I'm just saying. I I understand what you're saying. So would you like to go forward with this piece and take more testimony? Is that what I'm hearing you say? I would think that this would be an opportunity to have that testimony before we divvy up because it has big implications. I mean, the the thrust of both pieces in many ways is is sort of Australian value. Can I just not talk about the other part of it at all right now? I just want to know from people if do you want to delay the vote on this on the bill and go forward with taking more testimony on this? Do you want to support this or do you want to not support this? There are three choices here that we have. And and I would like to come to some resolution on this. I am going to oppose this. So and Senator Polina. Well, I think I think in order to go forward with it, we would have to take more testimony without a doubt because of the impact it has on the town clerks and the the cost and the work and whatnot. So I would not want to move forward with it without taking testimony from town clerks. But on the other hand, I don't I'm afraid that we're going to run out of time, meaning not so much here in this committee at this moment. But, you know, the longer we wait to move the bill to the House, where, you know, the House has a tendency to change things that we send over to them, which, you know, get into a lot of back and forth in terms of trying to make this work. And we took a lot of testimony before we moved forward with what we did. And I imagine the House can take a lot of testimony. I hate to get to May and have this sort of languishing somewhere because people are not agreeing on various parts of it. So I wish we could take testimony on it before we move forward with it. But I'm afraid if we start taking testimony on it, we'll delay it more and that would be end up we will end up regretting that in the long run. So I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is that I think we should we should just not move forward with this part. Senator Colomar. Boy. Corey, I know I indicated to you earlier that I'd probably support it. But I'm feeling I'm going the other way here. First of all, I don't think by I mean, we'd almost have to take testimony tomorrow, Alison, in order to do anything. And I don't think I think we need more than just one day's worth of testimony. I mean, here it is already one thirty in the afternoon. Who could we possibly get that we would hear all sides of it in one day? And I agree with Senator Boone. I think Senator White, I don't want to necessarily hold this whole build back at this point, I think we do need a third reading. And I'm going to vote against the bill still. But I'm I'm also going to agree that I think we should I mean, the only other option, Madam Chair, is to push it forward. And I hate to say this, but the other body could always strip it out when we get the other body. I'm not going to do that because I don't I don't believe in sending anything forward that we don't believe in. OK. Then I will support the rest of the committee. Senator Rahm, I mean, I just want to say I believe in this. And I think we could work with clerks on how to make it work so that we support voters. We don't often hear from just your average voter who's trying to make sure they understand how to vote. And for me, that's who I'm sticking with here, because I think we could help clerks make this work. So I really would like to see this language move forward so that it's part of the discussion. OK. OK, Senator Clarkson. Well, I think I'm with Polina on this one. I think that I don't feel comfortable moving forward in with Section one with with the First Amendment piece of the amendment. OK, we hear more. All right. So I think that that's a no go on the first part of it. Now let's move to the other part. And I. Senator Parrott, I hate to be such a Debbie Downer today for you. Because I know you've put a lot of thought into this for democracy. And I know that that you have a real love of elections and town meetings and participation. I know that and I appreciate your interest in promoting this. I do when I read this and the the goal, the duty of the committee is to increase residents access to statewide and local elections. That's the the stated goal of how and how to do that. And as far as I can tell, the only thrust in here is around Australian ballot or possibly changing town meeting day. But the only other thrust here is around Australian ballot. And in my opinion, if we want to increase participation in town meetings, there are a multitude of ways of doing it. It isn't just about Australian ballots, but we are focusing here only on Australian ballots rather than on how do we get how do we get people to come to town meeting? How do we make it available? Can we do it remotely? Can we do it by having three town meetings in different parts of towns and then have? I don't know, but it seems to me that if we want to really, really look at increasing participation in town meetings, then we need to be really creative about it. And I don't think this that just looking at Australian ballot is being very creative. And I do think that the Secretary of State's office probably has answers to all of these questions and has information that they could give us in a report. They don't need a group to study the issue about it. We know what the issues are around the primary, for example. We just need to know how to solve those issues. And this group isn't going to come up with that. They're just going to say whether it should be required for the primary. So I do not. I think there are ways of doing this. And I think that the Secretary of State's office has so much to do between now and December 22nd, or 2022, that putting something else on them is going to once again leave the five potentially six members of the division sleepless and with no family time. So that's my opinion. And so I also oppose this part of the amendment. So Senator Clarkson. So I actually I hate to do this, Madam Chair, but I actually agree that town meeting participation, particularly in town meeting needs to be addressed. So I I think I would and I wouldn't be so prescriptive about what to address. I think we want to, you know, we have a great opportunity here. We've had we've we've had the best turnout ever in our general election. And then we've gone to our town back to town meetings and and and lower voter turnout. So it does strike me that given the success of 2020 and then the sort of. I wouldn't say nosedive of the town meeting elections, but definitely not as you know, we don't have 73 percent or 74 percent participation rate in town meeting. I think that we could if if the if Corrie was willing to expand this and have it be a a. It's purpose it really look at how do we build participation with town meeting and the voter access aspect? I mean, it's to me it's it's two things what we're trying to get at, not just promoting Australian ballot, which I know many towns don't have any interest in pursuing and sometimes are very small and sometimes, you know, I attend a lot of town meetings. And there is such a difference between between towns in terms of who shows up. And it isn't because they all either do or don't have Australian ballot. So I I would love to see sort of a slightly expanded scope of this of this study committee and really have an address of how how can we improve participation in town meeting, which is one thing. And how can we continue to improve voter access and turnout in in in our in our general elections? So I'm going to make two comments on that. And then I'm going to turn to the elections division to see if they could do either this or a broadly expanded study of town meetings. We've been studying town meetings for many years. Reed Susan Clark's book and Frank Bryan's book and all of those pieces, they've been working on this for years and a 10 month study by these people is not going to lead to the answers that they they've been promoting some of the things that we could do for many years. And yet we're unwilling to do them. So we we have some of the answers out there. But the other issue about the difference between the general election and town meetings is in the general election, all we're doing is we're electing representatives, presidents. I mean, we are electing people. There is one question, who should you vote for in each of these offices? That's the only question. Who should you vote for in town meeting election town meetings? There are many, many, many questions. Should we fund the pool? Should we give the gun club tax property tax exemption? Should we have a select board of three members or five? Should we point our town clerk or hire our town clerk? Though there's a huge difference between those two elections. And and that. So there's many, many ways of improving. Anyway, I'll I'll be quiet now. I've said my piece, you know where I stand. But I would like to turn to Will to get a sense of whether they could even accomplish this study, much less broad study. No offense to no offense to Will, but Chris has had his hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. It's OK. No, I want Will. No. OK, Chris. No offense taken. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't want to put Will in a difficult position either of of having to say, you know, I just don't have enough time to do something like that. That that that probably is difficult for some people to hear and difficult for some people to understand. And I'm I'm just going to be really protective of of our resources and our ability to do things right in the Secretary of State's office. Because if we take on too much, we we will make some of this. You will have to push other things aside. So just to be really clear, we're not opposed to the idea of expanding both by mail to other elections. And you're all asking the right questions. And I applaud the intent behind the senator's amendment. In our eyes, expanding the provisions of this bill isn't a matter of if it's a matter of when and how. And we fully agree that we have to study it really carefully. You've all brought up some great points already about the differences for an August primary or for a local election. And it's and it's complicated. And it needs to be looked at very carefully before, especially before we mandate it for local elections. More people ought to have access to vote by mail. No doubt about it and the choice to vote by mail, vote early, vote in person. That's why we did it in 2020. And that's why we brought this this bill forward. And as you know, Vermont is doing a great job, thanks in large part to the work of this committee, the leadership of Secretary Kondos to lead the nation in access to the ballot box. So this bill and let's not forget it is a huge step forward right now as written, a step that very few states have taken and which hardly any other state is going to try right now. And so we really appreciate that. And the wonderful job this committee has done already of taking testimony, gathering input, bringing so many stakeholders together for support for this bill. The other thing that we really appreciate about this committee is that you've entrusted us to do the right thing in 2020. And that worked out really well. And you further trust us, I hope, with knowing our limits and the right pace for us to move forward with expanding mail balloting in 2022. And you all know the issues around the primary and town and annual meeting and elections. And like the Senator White was saying, we know what the issues are. We know it's different than a general election. And we know what we have to look at and consider before we include them. And we could certainly put those in writing for you. We can certainly come back in January of 2020 to to tell you how things are going and what we think ought to be addressed. But we want to make sure that we do that with appropriate caution and timing with all the work we have on our plates in the coming years. And it really is that we do a lot of work in between the actual elections themselves. Will's doing work today and tomorrow in planning for the elections in 2022. His whole team is focused on things that they have to do in between times to get ready for an election. So we've taken this approach that we do it really slowly and deliberately and do it right. We're really proud of this bill as it came out of committee. And so we would just hope that the committee we don't take our eyes off what's important here, this massive leap forward that we've made and that any expansion needs to be done deliberately. And so we don't think this amendment is necessary at this time. And we would respectfully request that you not support it. We don't need a study committee of 13 people to figure out what the issues are here. We know what the issues are here. We can make some recommendations, but we we really are cautious about adding a lot more to the elections division plate right now. And we've got a real clean, simple bill that we all decided in the last couple of months was the right way to proceed with the general election only at this time. We appreciate you giving us some time to talk about this amendment today. So, Senator Polina, we need to kind of hopefully wrap this up pretty soon. Right. Well, I actually have two thoughts. One, neither of which are going to move us forward. I'll tell you what they are. Anyway, one is that instead of an expanded study committee, I would see a smaller one that gathers to like talk about some of these issues and it's less bureaucratic and less difficult to like manage and organize, but the other thought I had was that what we should do. And I'm not saying we should do this as a brainstorm. Don't hold me to this. But I wondered about we should introduce a committee bill next year. Sometimes soon that says we're going to make town meeting day holiday. We're going to require the mail out voting and sort of that would give us the reason that would give us the vehicle from which to take testimonies. All I'm saying. So I don't want us to get too far off here because Cory has to go back to his committee and we have a lot of stuff to do this afternoon. So the question is, do we support this amendment or not? And I think that there are many, many, many ways of us to that the committee itself, along with the Secretary of State's office can look at the issues. As he said, they know the issues of mailing out ballots in the primary and local elections, they can come with recommendations. They don't need a committee to do that. We can take testimony on whether we should take it, make it a holiday or not. That was one of the original suggestions that came to us. And we put it aside. We said, we can't deal with that now. We're focusing on this narrow issue. So I the question is, do we support this amendment or not? And we have to make a decision here. And I will tell you, I do not support this amendment. Now, everybody else can weigh in. Senator Polina, I'll put my brainstorms aside. I would say, I would say no, please do. Just trying to like get the flow going here, you know? No, but we don't we don't have time to get the flow going. That's the problem. We we can get the flow going in three weeks. We can start talking about this again, but not today. Not attaching it to this bill. So Senator Polina, where are you? I said, not I said, not. Oh, OK, I'm sorry. OK, Senator Rom. Well, I don't want the Secretary of State's office to think I don't value their time, but this is a huge moment in kind of seismic shift in how we think about elections and democracy and civic participation. And I think knowing the issues from town clerks and from kind of a, you know, administrative administrative lens is really different than having public participation and really talking to folks who often feel left behind in how our elections operate. So I it sounds like I will probably be outnumbered. I don't want you to think that means I don't respect you and your time, but I would support this amendment. Senator Colmar. Well, I've already weighed in the first part of the amendment. But I do support the study. So I think Senator Clarkson has to decide to vote. Well, I really want to thank you, Corey, because I think you're you know, this amendment has got lots of good things in it. And ones that I wish we had more time to take up. So I'm I'm I'm going to support our chair and vice chair and vote against it, but not because I don't think it's got lots of good stuff for us to be considering for town meeting. I do. And and coming from a town, you know, we've all watched our town meeting participation dwindle and and it's frustrating. But I also would feel very uncomfortable moving forward without more more discussion and and more input from the people who actually administer it. And all of us anecdotally have, you know, different feedback on that. I, you know, I represent 26 towns. Many of them do not do Australian ballot at all. So I mean, so anyway, I'm thank you, chair. I'm we've we've moved off the Australian ballot issue and onto the study. What? So it sounds like I'm sorry to tell you, but it sounds like three of us don't support. The amendment. So I will report on the floor that the majority of the committee does not support it, but it isn't unanimous. Would it be fair to say it's a three to vote? It would be fair to say that. Yeah. Yeah. OK, thank you. I appreciate your time and thank you from here on out. Thanks. And these discussions will continue. Believe me, as long as I am on this committee, we will be having discussions about town meeting. Yeah, I appreciate it. And we increased our 86 percent and we'll have more years of data for you coming up. OK. Thanks, Corey. Yeah, thank you. Bye. Thank you, Will and Chris. Thank you. Thank you. Committee. OK, so let's move on. And I don't know if we used up all of our we used.