Legislative Council provided the Senate Government Operations Committee with an overview of the newest draft of S.32 on Wednesday. They noted that in draft 3.1 if a municipality wanted to get rid of ranked choice voting (RCV) once approved either the voters of the municipality or the legislative body would have to vote to move away from it. However, the legislative body could not vote to get rid of RCV if the voters of a municipality had voted to adopt it originally. Only the voters could repeal RCV in that case.

Another change dealt with the RCV study committee. The committee will look at all state and federal offices. In addition, the new language deals with the composition of the committee. The Vermont Municipal Clerks and Treasurers association would have three seats. Each of the seats will represent a different size municipality to make sure that communities of all sizes are represented. One would be from a town that hand counts elections. Election results shall be released round by round as soon as possible and at regular intervals and will be marked as provisional until approved. The Secretary of State’s office will develop policies to disclose round by round results.

Senator Vyhovsky moved to approve the new draft and it passed unanimously.