[T]he Vermont House on Thursday advanced legislation protecting personal information contained in the town and state voter checklists, after fears were stoked last year when a federal commission sought to collect it.
The bill, H.624, would bar the state from releasing several types of information on voter checklists kept by city and town clerks and by the secretary of state. A key aim would be to keep the information out the hands of federal agencies or foreign governments, supporters said.
The action came six weeks after the White House closed down the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity after critics said it’s supposed reason for existing — to identify cases of voter fraud — was actually a guise for laying the groundwork for taking away some people’s right to vote.
The bill’s two principal sponsors, Reps. Dylan Giambatista, D-Essex Junction, and John Gannon, D-Wilmington, said there had been an outcry from Vermonters last year when news broke that the commission was seeking personal information on voters from the states’ voter registration lists.
Information sought included names, addresses, party affiliations, voting histories, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers, among other items.
“The outpouring from Vermonters contacting the secretary of state’s office was by far the greatest for any issue seen since the secretary took office,” Gannon said. Secretary of State Jim Condos has held that office since 2011. “Virtually every contact was asking that their individual data not be shared,” he said.
Gannon said some people had even asked to be removed from voter checklists altogether. “Vermonters should not have to choose between protecting their privacy and their freedom to vote,” he said.
Although the commission has since been dissolved, Gannon said the threat it posed remained. When the White House disbanded the commission, “it transferred the mission of that commission to the Department of Homeland Security,” he said. “So I still think it’s possible that this will be an ongoing issue.”
President Donald Trump has highlighted the issue of voter fraud since the 2016 election, when he lost the popular vote to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton but won in the electoral college. He has maintained in tweets and speeches that Clinton’s popular vote margin of about 2.9 million was due to votes from undocumented newcomers to the United States who lacked citizenship and who should not have been allowed to vote. Several investigations have turned up no evidence to support his claims.
Most Republicans opposed the bill, which was advanced on a voice vote after another key tally, on whether to accept a rewrite of the measure by the Government Operations Committee, was approved on a 93-64 roll call vote.
Some of the Republican members sought to paint the legislation as little more than a partisan attack on Trump.
“So finally the cat is out of the bag and the socialists have had their say,” Rep. Thomas Terenzini, R-Rutland Town, said after Democrats had spoken in support of the bill. “But Donald Trump is the president, and he’s making America great again.”
Rep. Douglas Gage, R-Rutland City, made a call for bipartisanship, explaining that he had been a candidate in an election decided by one vote, and knew the fragile and changing nature of power dynamics.
“Plug different people into the scenario. Maybe someday, you might be person who lost by one vote,” he said. “The party that’s in power at that time may be somebody who doesn’t agree with you views, and you may need their help in order to sort it out.”
The bill is up for final action in the House on Friday and would head to the Senate if passed.
