The actual counting of ballots in the first recount of a House race to be conducted by lawmakers since 1985 is likely still at least two weeks away.
The House last week approved a recount request from former Rep. Susan Hatch Davis, P-Washington, who has served five terms in the Legislature.
A judge in December declared Bob Frenier, a Republican from Chelsea, the winner over Hatch Davis by seven votes after a recount, and he was sworn in at the beginning of the legislative session.
A “subgroup” of the 11-member House Government Operations Committee is set to meet Thursday afternoon to begin developing rules, according to Rep. Maida Townsend, D-South Burlington, chair of Government Operations.
Townsend said that subgroup includes four members of her committee: Reps. Ronald Hubert, R-Milton, Robert LaClair, R-Barre Town, John Gannon, D-Wilmington, and Cynthia Weed, P/D-Enosburg Falls.
“The full Government Operations Committee will receive the sub-group’s proposal, discuss it, adopt it, modify it, whatever needs be to arrive at the proposed ‘policies and procedures’ to be presented to the full House for their consideration,” Townsend wrote in an email Monday.
The full House will have the final say on those “policies and procedures.”
The recount could then be during the week of Feb. 21-24 or Feb. 28-March 3, according to Townsend. “We are taking this one step at a time … wanting to continue in a deliberative, diligent, and thorough manner,” she wrote.
The House Government Operations Committee decided 7 to 4 in a party-line vote last month to support the recount request. The committee’s six Democrats and one Progressive approved the measure, while all four Republicans on the panel opposed it.
The full House, in a vote of 76 to 59, approved moving forward with a recount. Those opposed included 46 Republicans, joined by 13 Democrats and independents. No Republicans voted in favor of conducting a new recount.
In approving the recount recommendation, the House also voted that it would later adopt “the policies and procedures” for how it would be conducted once a recommendation is made by Government Operations.
Will Senning, the director of elections in the secretary of state’s office, and the Office of Legislative Council are assisting the committee in drafting the rules for the new recount.
State statute requires that a tabulator be used for recounts, but the House need not follow state law.
During debate on the matter, Townsend talked of the need during a new recount to have a
“visual inspection” of ballots before they are placed in a tabulator to see if any marks could lead to additional votes.
Under current law, the “visual inspection” of ballots is not a requirement before they are placed in a tabulator.
A resolution recommending a recount that the House Government Operations Committee presented to the full House last week called for a special panel of 23 House members — including 11 Republicans and a total of 11 Democrats and Progressives, plus Townsend as chair — to actually conduct the new recount.
As chair, Townsend would be assisted by the leaders of the Republican and Progressive party caucuses in the House.
