Board of Civil Authority chair says vote by mail expansion has problems

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VOTE BY MAIL EXPANSION: Secretary of State Jim Condos has gone ahead with his plan to send ballots to all active registered voters in the state.

Secretary of State Jim Condos on Monday issued a directive to mail ballots to every active registered voter for the general election, but some critics say the move will let ballots end up in the wrong hands, and make it nearly impossible to verify who’s voting.

Ed Wilson, chair of the Morristown Board of Civil Authority, told True North that town clerks can’t really know who signs and sends ballots in a universal mail-in election system.

“Supposedly it would come in with the registered voter’s name on it and be signed by that voter, but we don’t have signatures on file and there’s just no way of knowing,” he said. “ … No one can tell me how we will know that the person who is intended to get that ballot got it and voted it.”

Wilson said unrequested ballots across the state will end up discarded, and there’s nothing to stop the wrong person from grabbing them and casting votes. He also said the standard system of having people request ballots — as is taking place for the August primary — would have been sufficient to respond to COVID-19 worries.

“What scenario is there where someone would be disenfranchised?” he said. “At least with our BCA, we’ll do anything. We’ll do curbside. We’ll do whatever we need to do to make sure someone has the right to vote.”

In New Jersey, city officials in Patterson acknowledged that a large mail-in vote fraud scandal took place during a special election in May. New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed voter fraud charges against two city officials accused of running a mail-in ballot scheme. In all, more than 800 ballots, or 20 percent of the total ballots, were discarded as a result.

According to Wilson, the legal-in-Vermont practice of “vote harvesting” could inadvertently spread the coronavirus, presenting another problem for the election. Vote harvesting, a practice illegal in many states, is when an individual or organization collects ballots from voters to bring them to the town clerks.

State Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, R-Stowe, attempted to get an amendment passed that would have prohibited candidates, their families, and their staff from collecting ballots. House lawmakers did not approve those limits.

“I was stunned that it didn’t pass,” she said. “I was stunned that my colleagues thought that it was appropriate that candidates go door-to-door to collect ballots on which their name is placed and return them.”

She said one of her colleagues called such ballot harvesting a “constituent service” to be helping voters with the ballots.

“Having candidates go door-to-door to collect and return ballots is in my view absolutely inappropriate, and I am really surprised at my colleagues,” Scheuermann said.

In his directive announced Monday, Condos prohibited political candidates and their campaign staff from gathering and delivering ballots other than their own. They are allowed, however, to deliver ballots of family members and people for whom they act as caretakers.

Scheuermann also noted that going door-to-door to collect ballots could spread the virus.

“I would hope that if things are as they are today, that people would not be going door-to-door to do much of anything,” she said, “and that families wouldn’t be letting people into their homes to do this, either. I mean, I would hope people would be smarter than that, frankly.”

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.

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12 thoughts on “Board of Civil Authority chair says vote by mail expansion has problems

  1. Rampant voter fraud, that’s what Vermonters have to look forward to in the next election, NOT getting the best candidate into office. We had a good absentee voting process, why mess with a system that worked?

  2. If these are the rules then why do we have a check in check out process at the polls. If its Okay to collect ballots outside of the board of civil authority presence in bulk what do you think is going to happen? This is going to be a disaster.

    Governor Scott, you sold us out again.

  3. Dems got exactly what they want, total control over voting/ballots. That flu pandemic came in pretty handy for the left.

    • The Flu has been taken grievous advantage of by many who are hostile to ALL American traditions.

      The photo of a row of a dozen mailboxes is perfect, to enable voting fraud.
      So many other scams that can occur.

      Why not allow those who WANT an mailed ballot, request one – they have ALWAYS been available.

  4. Dem/Progs are happy.
    They got their mail-in.

    Scott helped out by not making a big issue of it
    He said Condos is the expert, we have to take him at his word.

    Condos is in the job, only because he has sucked up to the party elite
    THEY trust him to do the right thing FOR THE PARTY

    Vermonters will be soooo screwed with Dem/Progs in total control and GWSA MANDATING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COMPREHENSIVE ENERGY PLAN

    This is on top of VTDigger not allowing comments, because those comments were 10 to 1 AGAINST MAIL-IN.

    WHAT A COINCIDENCE

  5. Remember the term “climate deniers”? That term was coined by those on the left. Now we have “voter fraud deniers”. The chief denier is the guy making the rules. And we have a governor who allowed this to happen. Remember this when you vote. They have total control and not an inkling of integrity, honesty or shame. As long as people vote for them there is nothing we can do to stop it.
    TAKE BACK VERMONT!!!!

    • You’ve just got to love that “denier” label. A real slick piece of word trickery.

      I propose a counter label: “ass-hatter”. As in “climate change ass-hatter”, “COVID ass-hatter” or “vote fraud ass-hatter”, etc.

      I’ll give the moonbats this: they’re great at twisting language. Possibly their only innate skill. Time to start twisting it back at them. All they’ve got is this sloppy verbal jujitsu. You try to talk logic with them and they implode. Then they go right to their wheelhouse of linguistic bulls—.

  6. Condos is either totally naive or is a slick hack politician because he just guaranteed the occurrence of massive voter fraud to guarantee the election of all Dem candidates.I vote for slick, hack politician. Nothing changes.

  7. “some critics say the move will let ballots end up in the wrong hands, and make it nearly impossible to verify who’s voting” – Isn’t that why it’s being done? If it were actually to limit exposure to Wuhan virus, door-to-door contact wouldn’t be allowed, either. Polls indicate that the blanket mail-in isn’t something the majority of voters want and most have no doubt it will not only severely complicate vote authentication and will open the election process to more corruption than already exists but will turn the election process into a long drawn-out nightmare and a circus of accusations. The generation of mayhem and the opportunity for fraud have been a standard tactic of the Progressives – the Mueller persecution, the Kavanaugh accusations, the Ukraine impeachment, the Progressive supported and encouraged riots, the wildly manipulated Wuhan virus statistics… All engineered not to resolve problems but to create extreme civil disruption.

  8. The process was in place for absentee balloting. Apparently there wasn’t enough opportunities for voter fraud to guarantee complete control by the Democrats. Now there is.

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