Checking up on Vermont’s voting machines
The office of the Secretary of State will conduct audits Thursday of the accuracy of the vote counts produced by the optical scanning devices used in four communities for two races – state treasurer...
View ArticleThree recounts scheduled for close races among Vermont legislative candidates
Newly elected legislators gather this week for orientation in Montpelier – except perhaps in the three cases in which the outcome of the election has yet to be declared a done deal by the candidates...
View ArticleVermont Secretary of State reports to U.S. Justice Department on Nov. 30
The Secretary of State will report by week’s end to the Department of Justice on how many ballots came in from overseas after the election but the extended deadline for those votes to count. The...
View ArticleVermont’s election audit attests to accuracy of optical scanners
Secretary of State Jim Condos reports that an audit of the vote tallies from four communities that used optical scanning devices found insignificant differences. Thursday morning folks from Condos’...
View ArticleDemocrat in St. Albans House district holds onto seat after recount
Democrat Michael McCarthy will join the Vermont House of Representatives in January, having eked out a 15-vote victory over Republican Casey Toof in a recount completed Thursday for Franklin 3-1. Toof...
View ArticleVermont lawmaker killed in car accident
Rep. Greg Clark, R-Vergennes, died Friday in a car accident in Waltham. Early police reports say he may have gotten out of his car to clear his windshield and was struck. Clark had served in the...
View ArticleVermont candidate websites frozen in time
Here it is a month after the election and a tour of the websites of Vermont statewide candidates finds little has changed on them since voter-decision day. On most, time stopped just before Election...
View ArticleDemocrats in Vermont House picked new leaders
House Democrats promoted Rep. Willem Jewett of Ripton to House Majority Leader from the assistant leader post he held for the past two years during a Saturday organizational caucus. Jewett, a...
View ArticleRep. Paul Poirier drops his challenge of Vermont House Speaker Shap Smith
Rep. Shap Smith, the Democratic incumbent House Speaker, no longer has a challenger for his third term leading the 150-member House of Representatives. Rep. Paul Poirier, I-Barre, emailed House members...
View ArticleMorgan Daybell helped bring stability to Vermont Progressive Party
The turnover in executive directors of the Democratic and Republican political parties in Vermont has been fast and furious in recent years, while the Vermont Progressive Party has had the same man at...
View ArticleVermont Republicans to hear from Steve Forbes at March dinner
Steve Forbes, a two-time presidential candidate and chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media, will be the keynote speaker for the spring dinner of the Vermont Republican Party. The even is...
View ArticleVermont GOP picks new party vice chairwoman
The Vermont Republican Party has a new member of its leadership team. Here’s the news release the party issued announcing Deborah Bucknam’s selection as vice chairwoman. “St. Johnsbury attorney Deborah...
View ArticlePlenty of life remains in health care exchange bill — or at least its key...
Did a health care bill really die Friday when the House Health Care Committee neither its supporters nor its opponents mustered a majority? Nope. It’s way too early in this legislative session to...
View ArticleSeveral transparency bills on deck in Vermont Legislature; others will need...
Six bills pending in the Legislature address facets of an issue that folks in my profession care about deeply — transparency in government. Transparency is one of those words with new currency. Once...
View ArticleVermont Senate’s campaign finance bill: many find something to like
It’s hard to make everyone happy when writing a bill that will govern the financing of campaigns, but the Senate Government Operations Committee came up with a measure that its members could all...
View ArticleHouse Appropriations Committee splits along party lines on budget bill
The four Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee failed to recommend the budget bill the panel has worked on for months. The tally on the bill was 7-4, with all the Democrats supporting the...
View ArticleVermonters First pays for mailings about House members’ votes
Vermonters First, the independent PAC funded mostly by a wealthy, politically conservative Burlington woman, is reaching out to Vermonters with a message about tax bills in the Legislature. Residents...
View ArticleHouse proposes delay in public record exemption makeover
The House takes up a short bill this morning that postpones decisions about public records exemptions until 2014 to allow for the Legislature’s legal staff to comb the statutes one last time and write...
View ArticleVt. GOP to host Scott Brown
Vermont Republicans will host former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts at their spring dinner next month. The dinner is actually being held on the first day of summer. Here’s the party’s news...
View ArticleQuick fix made to restrict tax information that would be shared with Vermont...
The Senate version of the tax bill has a four-line provision – not included in the House tax bill – that has caused a stir in recent days in Republican circles. The provision would allow the Department...
View Article
