Democracy Program update from our Executive Director

VPIRG’s Democracy Program is about making elections more fair, open and responsive to the will of the people.

As VPIRG’s Executive Director, I’m responsible for most of our State House advocacy work on democracy issues. This year we’re focusing on three big priorities:

1. A comprehensive overhaul of our campaign finance law;
2. Statewide Instant Runoff Voting; and
3. A bill to allow citizens to register to vote on Election Day.

The Senate Government Operations Committee is the place where these issues are considered first. It’s a five-member committee with three Democrats (Jeanette White - Chair; Clair Ayer and Edward Flanagan) and two Republicans (Bill Doyle – Vice Chair, and George Coppenrath).

In a surprise move on Tuesday, Feb. 27th, the committee decided to put off an expected vote on the Election Day Registration bill until 2008. Why? Well, despite the fact that EDR laws in other states have improved voter participation rates, a number of town clerks in Vermont have voiced opposition to the bill, primarily because it could result in more work for them.

For instance, the Middlebury Town Clerk feared that allowing people to register to vote on Election Day would be “incredibly cumbersome and hard to do.” Unless it’s not – meaning few people taking advantage of it. In that case, she wondered, why do it?

The reality is that states with EDR consistently boast turnout rates 10-12 percentage points higher than states without EDR. And clerks in those states have few complaints.

Unfortunately, the Vermont clerks who are against EDR do have a lot of influence with some legislators, particularly in the House of Representatives. There is no doubt that an EDR bill could have been passed the Gov Ops committee and the full Senate this year. But in order to try to build stronger bi-partisan support for EDR, Senator White decided to create a blue ribbon panel to come up with a way to design our EDR law that minimizes the concerns of the clerks while still encouraging higher voter participation.

VPIRG will most likely be picked to be a part of this group. It’s supposed to be set up sometime in the next few weeks. We’ll keep you posted.

Keep an eye out for updates on the VPIRG-backed campaign finance reform bill (S.164 sponsored by Sen. Flanagan) that the Senate committee will take up on March 13th. Testimony on Instant Runoff Voting is scheduled for March 15th.

Cheers,
Paul