Scott wants mail-in ballots for Town Meeting

By Guy Page

Gov. Phil Scott wants the Legislature to allow mail-in voting for Town Meeting, he said at his press conference Friday.

In response to a question posed by VT Digger’s Anne Wallace Allen about adopting mail-in balloting going forward, Gov. Scott answered: “I believe this crisis is going to be with us for the next 3-4 months … we should prepare for some sort of mail-in ballot procedure for Town Meeting. We’ve had very low voter turnout for Town Meeting, this could be a way to bolster that.”

The Legislature didn’t like the idea when he presented it this year, Scott said.

Guy Page

Allen pressed for an answer of universal balloting post-Covid. “If we can move forward and try it on Town Meeting day, that would tell us a lot whether we could pursue this further,” Scott said. “But so far so good.”

Covid curfews are up to municipalities – In response to 11 ongoing Covid-19 outbreaks, Gov. Scott would strongly prefer to avoid curfews on public gatherings, in contrast to a statewide 9:30 pm curfew and size limits imposed Monday by Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker.

At the beginning of the press conference, Gov. Scott said his administration later Friday would issue “recommendations” about crowd size limits at social gatherings. “We’re seeing cases turn into clusters at social gatherings,” Scott said. The Central Vermont hockey outbreak took place in social events, not on the ice, he said. “These are not yet being issued as mandates. “

Vermont Daily asked Gov. Scott: “Gov. Baker in Massachusetts Monday restricted home social gatherings to 10 and required a 9:30 pm curfew on public gatherings which some bar-restaurant people worry is the deathknell of their industry. If you make these recommendations mandates, and would it include a curfew and police power to levy fines, as Gov. Baker has done?”

His administration allows municipalities to enforce curfews, Scott said. Burlington imposed but then cancelled its curfew. “They can utilize this tool if they think it’s necessary. I’d rather not mandate this, it’s an advisory at this point.”

At present, there are four Vermonters hospitalized, three in intensive care units. No one has died of Covid-19 since July. Levine noted that nationally “we’re in a new stage of the pandemic,” with lockdowns occurring in Europe and, in the USA this week, two consecutive days of positive test cases over 100,000.

Hospital retrieves some patient schedules lost in cyberattack – UVM Medical Center has retrieved some patient schedules following last week’s cyberattack, but full retrieval “is expected to take some time,” the hospital said in a press release yesterday.

At his press conference, Gov. Scott didn’t blame the hospital. “We have cyberattacks almost every day within state governemnt, in the economy,” Scott said. “From my standpoint they’ve done everything right. It was one of those fluke things that just happens.”

UVMMC issued this press release at 3 p.m. Thursday:

“Our IT team was able to successfully retrieve some appointment schedules overnight for the University of Vermont Medical Center, Central Vermont Medical Center, Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital and Porter Medical Center. We will continue working to retrieve additional schedules across the Network. In the meantime, patients should continue to try and confirm their appointments until all schedules are retrieved. Patients should also continue to bring medication lists and any other documentation, such as after-visit summaries from previous appointments.

“Lab samples continue to be processed with results sent to physicians as quickly as possible. We expect results will continue to be delayed 24 to 48 hours going forward.

“Our work with the Vermont Army National Guard to clear thousands of end-user computers and devices is ongoing. This process is expected to take some time.”

The FBI has not yet responded to Vermont Daily’s inquiry about the possible use of ransomware in the UVMMC attack.

Read more of Guy Page’s reports. Vermont Daily is sponsored by True North Media.

Image courtesy of TNR

28 thoughts on “Scott wants mail-in ballots for Town Meeting

  1. ELECTIONS IN VERMONT AND SWING STATES

    In Vermont, a blank ballot was mailed to each active registered voter, dead or alive, moved away or not.
    Registered voters 506,312
    Votes cast 372,366,
    https://electionresults.vermont.gov/Index.html#/voterturnout

    Those who received a ballot, but lost it, could obtain a new one on Election Day by signing an affidavit at their polling place.
    When I arrived, early morning, on Election Day, there already were boxes with signed affidavits.

    Spare Ballots:
    That means an extra quantity of blank ballots were printed, and available at each polling station.
    Some of these ballots could be used by polling station insiders to tip close races one way or another.
    Also, an extra quantity of blank ballots likely were kept “in reserve” elsewhere.
    They were already filled out, to be distributed, as needed, to tip close races one way or another.

    Swing States:
    This would especially be the case in swing states, in, such as in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona.
    Various irregularities have been reported in five Democrat-Big-Machine cities, such as Detroit, Mich.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Atlanta, Ga.; Milwaukee, Wis.; and Las Vegas, Nev.
    As if orchestrated, ballot counting was halted about the same time in a number of key states, in the wee morning hours of Wednesday, November 4.
    A few hours later, starting about 4 am, there were huge data dumps of Biden votes in Michigan and Wisconsin.
    The FBI would be no help, because it has been actively undermining Trump, with help of the Media, which is 93% anti-Trump

    The allegations are:

    1) Mysterious ballot drops that seem to show tens of thousands of votes for Joe Biden and zero votes for President Trump,
    2) Inexplicable record turnouts in late-counting counties (all Democrat-dominated) that far surpass turnouts in counties in other states where the votes were counted on a timely basis; and
    3) The illegal banning of election observers in those very counties where the most outrageous anomalies were reported.
    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/11/06/the_kafka_election_finding_a_way_out_of_the_maze__144618.html

    In all these states, Trump was ahead, then “all votes were counted”, including “reserved-for-Biden votes” appearing from mysterious places.
    Counting went on for days after the election, until Trump ended up behind, and was not elected.

  2. It’s high time for town meeting and floor voting to be done away with.

    The blatant discrimination against the old, the infirm, the working poor, the shy, the timid, the deployed or the traveling for the sake of yankee tradition must end.

    All village/town/city and school business should be voted by Australian ballot every time.

  3. Ballots should be numbered, as are lottery tickets.
    All ballots must be run through a machine on or before Election Day.
    No ballots are valid, unless post-marked on or before Election Day.

    With a proper computer system, immediately after the polls close, it will be known which ballot numbers are missing, such as someone died, moved away, or did not bother to vote.

    Those numbers would be declared void, to avoid printing on the sly.

    There would still be many smaller ways to game the system, but at least the barn door would be closed before the horse got out.

    Before the present election, truckloads of ballots were printed, and filled out, for Biden, and distributed, as needed, to tip the various races in favor of Biden; a pre-meditated plan hatched in Democrat-run cities.

    Trump litigating would not catch enough fraud to make a difference.

    Changing the rules?
    Will never happen, because power folks like loosey, goosy rules.

  4. If you spend some time googling, you will find all sorts of election information.
    That information would not have been available 5 or 10 years ago.
    With the internet, and uncensored social media, there is no place to hide, as SNOWDON has been telling us.

    Democrats, with help of the MEDIA, are declaring victory, BEFORE RECOUNTING ANY BALLOTS.
    However, the wrong-doing have been so extreme, it would take months to PARTIALLY get to the bottom of it.

    So the Democrats and the Media tell us: Throw in the towel, move on, time to heal!
    There is nothing to see here.
    Nothing needs to be investigated
    All is fair and square

    That would mean it would again happen in the next election.

    Trump wants to show his 70+ million supporters how much wrong-doing has been perpetrated, for the record.

    DESTROYED, MISPLACED BALLOTS

    Here, ON TWITTER, is a video of a postal worker being told to backdate ballots so they could be counted.
    He says: Normally this would be done by a clerk, but this time the supervisor was backdating.
    https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1324174186366074880

    Mail and ballots found in dumpster
    https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/postal-worker-charged-after-thousands-of-pieces-of-mail-and-ballots-found-in-trash/

    Temp worker tossed Pennsylvania ballots
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/temp-tossed-pennsylvania-ballots-trump-complained-about-official-says-n1241128

    Kentucky postal worker fired for dumping ballots
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/521536-kentucky-postal-worker-fired-after-dumping-100-absentee-ballots

    Michigan, Wisconsin elections officials refuse to explain sudden Biden vote influx
    http://www.truenorthreports.com/michigan-wisconsin-elections-officials-refuse-to-explain-sudden-biden-vote-influx

    Back-dating mail-in ballots so they could be counted
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/michigan-usps-whistleblower-claims-late-ballots-backdated

    Illegal “asylum” seekers, praying for Biden win
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-mexico-immigration-idUSKBN27J2V2

    USPS says mail-in ballots not delivered. Those late ballots likely were for Trump, due to the Biden scandal
    https://nypost.com/2020/11/04/usps-says-huge-amount-of-mail-in-ballots-were-not-delivered/

  5. America Woke Up Wednesday Morning to Conspiracy Theories About ‘Vertical’ Vote Counts in Michigan, Wisconsin, a headline on dailycaller.com
    This URL has much information and evidence.
    https://dailycaller.com/2020/11/04/republicans-donald-trump-scott-baio-benny-johnson-election-conspiracy-theories/

    The URL shows:

    1) In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, while very few people were awake, Biden suddenly received a boost in Wisconsin and Michigan.
    Trump had been on track to win BOTH states.

    The Trump campaign has gone to Court to request recounts.

    All these ballots were filled, ready for scanning and counting.
    It likely took several people, working hard for many hours, to prepare the ballots
    None of these ballots were marked for Trump.

    2) Tweets calling into question an alleged injection of about 138,000 votes in Michigan, and another bump in Wisconsin for Biden.

    3) Voter tallies from both states spiked at around 6 a.m. in favor of Biden, according to graphs of live tallies posted by FiveThirtyEight.

  6. SEE THE GRAPHS OF THE BIDEN BUMPS IN THIS WEBSITE
    https://dailycaller.com/2020/11/04/republicans-donald-trump-scott-baio-benny-johnson-election-conspiracy-theories/

    Voter tallies before the bump in Michigan:
    Trump had 2,200,902 votes
    Biden 1,992,356 votes
    Trump had a lead of 208,546 votes, which could not be offset with mostly Democrat mail-in votes.

    Voter tallies after the bump in Michigan:
    Trump had 2,200,902 votes
    Biden had 2,130,695 votes
    Trump had a reduced lead of only 70,207 votes, which could easily be offset with mostly Democrat mail-in votes

    The instantaneous Biden bonus was 138,339 votes
    The instantaneous Trump bonus was ZERO votes.

    Daily Caller: While these are solely “allegations”, Michigan and Wisconsin election officials refuse to explain Biden’s dramatic vote tally increase that occurred in both states overnight.

    Here is the BS obfuscation from Michigan election officials
    “It was a simple error from a file created by the state that we ingested. DDHQ does not correct/amend/adjust any state provided file. The state noticed the error and produced an updated count. This happens on election nights and we expect other vote tabulators in MI experienced this error and corrected in real-time as we did,” the company said in a statement, according to Politifact.

    Here is the BS obfuscation of Decision Desk HQ echoing Michigan election officials
    Decision Desk HQ, from which many screenshots of the supposed discrepancy were obtained, claimed that the jump in Michigan was due to “a data error”.
    The entire ballot bump is for Biden, and there is zero bump for Trump?

    Here is USAToday leaving out some important details
    “The jump in Wisconsin occurred when Milwaukee reported its absentee ballot results”, according to USAToday.

    Sure. The ballots arrived on 3 trucks, at the polling station, from who knows where, at 4 am.
    The upward Biden bump was registered on websites before 6 am.

  7. Here, on TWITTER, is a 6-part video of a poll station worker talking for about 20 minutes
    She, and others, saw 3 trucks arrive about 4 AM Wednesday, Nov 3, with more than 130,000 ballots, all filled out for Biden, ready for counting.

    I recommend you watch all 6 parts to get a democracy-in-action education.

    She said: Poll workers were astounded all the ballots were marked for Biden.
    We were told to scan/count them, even though none of them had been verified.
    She said: Poll challengers/poll watchers were barred to observe the scanning/counting.
    https://twitter.com/Amberfiremusic/status/1324221767708266496

  8. SIX-PART VIDEO OF ELECTION FRAUD ON TWITTER
    https://dailycaller.com/2020/11/04/republicans-donald-trump-scott-baio-benny-johnson-election-conspiracy-theories/

    I watched a Twitter 6-part video on my iPhone, showing a woman poll worker talking about three trucks arriving at her polling station in Detroit, Michigan.
    The trucks delivered more than 138,000 ballots all marked for Biden.

    She was talking for about 20 minutes about what she and other people saw.

    This is a huge bit of news.
    Organized fraud on a large scale, to deprive Trump from being re-elected.
    It is just unbelievable
    And the same thing happened in Wisconsin!!

    This major fraud, on a large scale, just had to be prepared in advance, and in secret.

    This is a direct consequence of mail-in ballots, and “counting” ballots up to 10 days after election day.

  9. VERMONT ELECTION

    In Vermont, a blank ballot was mailed to each active registered voter, dead or alive, moved away or not.
    Registered voters 506,312
    Votes cast 372,366,
    https://electionresults.vermont.gov/Index.html#/voterturnout

    Those who received a ballot, but lost it, could obtain a new one on Election Day by signing an affidavit at their polling place.
    When I arrived in early morning, there already was a box full of signed affidavits.
    That means many more blank ballots were printed, and available at each polling station
    A number of blank ballots may have been kept “in reserve” to be filled out, as needed, at each polling station, or elsewhere, to tip close races one way or another.
    This would especially be the case in swing states, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona.
    In all these states, Trump was ahead, then “all votes were counted”, including “reserve votes” appearing from all over the place,
    Counting went on for days after the election, until Trump ended up behind, and was not elected.

  10. Join a nation wide boycott of Fox Nes, staring immediately. tucker is great and there are others but they sold our country out.

    Let them feel it. Don’t view them on the Internet either. Traitors.

  11. Our Governor Flip Flop Phil and his command decisions …….

    So what’s the urgency this time or is this just another page out of the progressive
    handbook ??

    So if you can’t waddle down to your local polling place, then request an absentee
    ballot….. pretty simple process.

    So I waddled down to my local polling place for the Presidential Election complete
    with a mask…… I throw out my name and my address, they didn’t have a clue who
    I was…….. Voter ID should be mandatory !!

    Wake up people

  12. These mail-in ballots are a joke. waste of taxpayers’ money.!! I didn’t ask for one. These mail-in ballots are a good reason for FRAUD.. Which is what is going on right now for our Presidential election. WCAX declared Biden as the winner before the polls were even closed. Are they mind readers// Yet WCAX is full of democratic liberals… People are saying they voted for the less evil of two Zuckerman (the thief) and Scott (the coward). Well, there was a good man who was running but the state media wouldn’t acknowledge him and that was Kevin Hoyt. He got my vote. He cares about Vermont and citizens.
    Mail-in ballots are a big mistake !!! So in Condos.. a BIG MISTAKE

    • Yup. Dems mailed my wife and I ballots. They also mailed a ballot here for one of our children, who has not been a VT resident for just over a decade.

  13. One would have expected our premier medical center to have a semi-competent IT dept that would have conducted server backups every night.

    The fact they can’t even recover their appointment schedule is incredible – and what one would expect in a third world country.

  14. One of the problems with mail-in balloting is the loss of protection provided through the anonymity of casting a secret ballot by those who may fear intimidation or coercion from various factions with whom they disagree. A vote against a school budget, for example, may result in retribution against a student. A vote against a town budget article may result in the biased application of certain road maintenance.

    “The secret ballot is one of a set of democratic institutions—e.g., freedom of speech, freedom of association (allowing competing political parties), universal suffrage, and due process of law—designed to foster competitive and legitimate democratic elections. The ability to vote without one’s choices being revealed to others is considered an essential characteristic of legitimate democratic systems”.

    Franck Thomas M. 1992. “The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance.” American Journal of International Law 86: 46–91

  15. It will be interesting how the legislature responds to mail in ballots for town and school meetings and whether they will keep with the policy of the November election of sending ballots to all registered voters due to Covid safety concerns.
    The reality is that sending ballots to all voters makes it harder to pass school budgets and my guess is they will flip on this and decide in this case that voters will have to request a ballot in order to vote.

    • How about the state simply move towards returning to normal?
      I see your dashboard says only 3 people are in the hospital.
      If this was a big killer, they’d be a whole lot more than that.
      Think of how many elderly people you have, and they are not even in the hospital!
      Only 3 people.. that is no crisis to warrant all this baloney.
      The young people are the future of the state and they want to work, have a life and get back to normal.. that is your future.
      They are going to pack up and leave and move where they can live normal lives.

  16. Old Phlip Phlop Phil looks more and more like a Progressive instead of a Republican; be it a RINO. This mail in voting has been a disaster from the beginning and should be thrown in the junk heap of voter fraud.
    If Scott wanted to do something honest, he would push for Voter ID’s and requested absentee ballots so the voter can be identified. Matching signatures would probably be helpful as well!
    At least we got rid of Zuck and Mitzi…

    • They’ll be collecting a State paycheck soon – you don’t really believe they’ll leave us alone, do you?

      Their friends will provide a nice, cushy position somewhere in the new fossil fuel eradication politburo in short order.

  17. What crisis is this Phil Scott?
    It looks to me like the crisis is Brainwashing, Fear and Corruption.
    There are only 3 people in the hospital in the entire state your dashboard says!
    Wouldn’t you think a Crisis might generate more than that?
    How many people had strokes and heart attacks today? was that a crisis?
    What are the recovery rates on those? are they almost 100% like Covid is?

    It’s pretty clear they have gone and redefined the definition of “Crisis”.

    These people running our states are shameless in how hard and how openly they work to screw over 50% ,at least, of the Electorate- who are the Taxpayers and Your Boss -I might add Mr.Scott.
    And then when the shoe is on the other foot, they burn down the city when they don’t like what we do. We’re all supposed to suck it up and take the high road.
    And they wonder why we elected Donald Trump AGAIN.

    This is no surprise that he wants to do this, whenever something works for the Democrats, you can bet we’ll see more of that.
    And why are we hearing about Massachusetts?
    Massachusetts and Vermont have just about zero in common.

    So I’m sure you’ll see lots more of mailing stuff in- with a free Sharpie too I bet..

    New Hampshire just voted to end the hysteria so have fun competing against us Gov.Phil Scott..
    Gov.Chris Sununu just said he’s interested in lowering our Rooms and Meals tax.
    Wake the heck up and move on!

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