This bill does a number of things to change election laws in Vermont, including wide sweeping voting method reforms (ranked-choice voting), new restrictions on independent and write-in candidates, changes to donation limits and required candidate information, the introduction of electronic absentee voting, and strengthened financial disclosure rules.

A bill changing numerous education provisions, H.429, generated a great deal of interest this session. Numerous people testified in both the House and Senate. On May 9th, a strike-all amendment from the Senate Government Operations Committee was considered. It incorporated provisions from S.32, which would create a Ranked-Choice Voting system for presidential primary elections.

The Senate Government Operations Committee took up H.429 on Friday. Harlan Smith was the first to speak. He has many family members in the military, including his son. He has also experienced that “certain members” of our community will, if they see you have not voted recently, push to have you deleted from the voter rolls.

The Senate Government Operations Committee resumed testimony on H.429 on Friday with Betty Keller (Member, Vermont League of Women Voters) who promoted Ranked Choice Voting as a solution to the “sore loser” issue this bill was trying to address. The Vermont League of Women Voters (LWV-VT) opposes the first two sections of the bill, which deal with the “sore loser” candidates. The legislature should not be limiting choices in the general election, she argued.

Christina Sivret (Executive Director, Vermont Ethics Commission) presented to the Senate Government Operations Committee on Wednesday a proposal to add language to H.429 surrounding candidate financial disclosures and the compliance with such requirements.

Representative McCarthy was introduced to the Senate Government Operations Committee on Tuesday by Chairwoman Hardy. Out of the gate she wanted to advise everyone they would be hearing from lots of others on H.429 and passage was not likely to occur soon. She acknowledged lots of media attention and outreach to her and other members about the bill.

The House Government Operations Committee took up potential changes to their elections bill, H.429, on Thursday. Chairman McCarthy had an amendment to offer on the bill which would cap contributions from statewide candidates to political parties at $60K.