[A] panel of lawmakers calling for a recount of a close race is trying to figure out how best to tell fellow representatives about its decision before the full House takes up the matter.
Former Rep. Susan Hatch Davis, P-Washington, is seeking the new recount in the Orange-1 House district. Results from Election Day and an earlier recount gave the seat to Bob Frenier, a Republican from Chelsea who has been sworn in. The current margin of victory is seven votes.
The panel took no action Thursday on the resolution, agreeing to sleep on it and come back Friday for another look before presenting it to the full House. The House has the final say on whether to adopt the recommendation.
“Something I would like to see is a little more specificity as to why the recount is being asked for,” Rep. Robert LaClair, R-Barre Town, told fellow committee members Thursday morning while reviewing a three-page draft resolution. “It seems that it would be appropriate to have that in there.”
Later in the day, another draft of the resolution, a sixth version, this time five pages long, contained a little more detail.
The latest draft stated that Hatch Davis and her attorneys had “presented a number of claims,” including that ballots were forced into a tabulator machine during a recount and other ballots weren’t “manually inspected” before they were placed in the vote counter.
Also, ballots stored in bags after Election Day, and stapled together, later had difficulty going through the recount tabulator after the staples were removed.
The committee, as part of the vote recommending a new recount, already decided against counting 14 ballots that previously had been deemed defective. Hatch Davis had earlier disputed whether a consistent process was used by town clerks in deciding when an absentee ballot was considered defective, allowing it to be counted or not.
As a result of the panel’s decision not to include the previously deemed “defective” ballots in the new recount, there is a greater chance the results won’t change much.
Will Senning, director of elections in the secretary of state’s office, told the committee Thursday that spelling out in the resolution the specific reasons the panel wants a recount made sense.
“I think it is a very good suggestion,” he said. “I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding and misperception even about the basic facts of this matter.”
Rep. Marcia Gardner, D-Richmond, said it was important for the committee to be “sensitive” to the hard work town clerks put into elections.
“I think we’re going to find out in the very near future how difficult it is to put together a recount,” she said.
Committee members discussed including in the resolution an acknowledgment of the hard work and dedication of the town clerks and election officials in the House district and around the state.
Rep. Ronald Hubert, R-Milton, spoke against it, saying he worked on elections for the past 12 years as a member of his town’s Board of Civil Authority.
“I’m going to tell you, point blank, if you put that in there I think you’re insulting me and you’re insulting my intelligence,” he said. “You want to throw a bouquet at people you want to slap around.”
“It’s not in any offensive way,” she said of the proposed acknowledgment. “It was meant the totally opposite of being offensive.”
By late afternoon, a majority of the committee agreed to keep such an acknowledgment out of the next draft resolution to be presented for consideration Friday.
The move to adopt a resolution follows the House Government Operations Committee’s vote of 7 to 4 on Wednesday afternoon in favor of performing a recount.
The vote split along party lines, prompting claims the matter was turning partisan. Those allegations hung over the debate Thursday as the panel tried to determine the recommended composition of the Special Recount Committee envisioned in the draft resolution.
A great deal of time was spent debating how many members of each party should be on the special panel. In the end, lawmakers agreed on 22 members, plus a presiding officer.
In addition to the four Republicans on the House Government Operations Committee, the leader of the House Republican caucus can appoint seven more members to the recount committee, meaning 11 Republicans can be on the panel.
The five Democrats on the House Government Operations Committee other than Townsend, and its one Progressive, would serve on the special recount panel.
The House Progressive caucus leader would then be allowed to appoint five other members.
Townsend would serve as the presiding officer of the special committee, with House Republican and Progressive caucus leaders as her assistants.
The Special Recount Committee, if the full House endorses the proposal, would count ballots and votes from the towns of Chelsea, Vershire, Corinth, Washington, Williamstown and Orange, which make up the two-member Orange-1 House district.
After the Election Day ballot tally and a recount both showed Frenier defeating Hatch Davis, she appealed to Superior Court to no avail. She then took her case to the House, which under Vermont’s Constitution has the authority to judge the elections and qualifications of its members.
If the House adopts the new recount recommendation, the Government Operations Committee must come up with a set policy and procedures on how to do it. That’s because the House has the authority to set its own recount rules.
The panel could also assign that task to the Special Recount Committee if it is formed.
“We are going to be roping in a bunch of people who don’t expect to be roped in,” said Rep. Warren Kitzmiller, D-Montpelier, a member of Government Operations.
