Are you concerned about the security of your vote in the upcoming midterm election? As election integrity has drawn national debate, individuals from across Vermont’s political spectrum recently came together in Burlington to discuss everything from voter rolls to mail-in voting.
Holding up a graph of voter turnout in Vermont, Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas explained why election integrity matters. The Democrat said that doubts about elections can affect participation.
“It shows that in the elections since 2012 we have gotten between 39% turnout and 72.9% turnout. So that means that in our lowest turnout election 61% of Vermonters did not vote. How can you say you know the will of the people when a majority of them did not vote? So I think election integrity needs to include robust participation among eligible voters.”
While a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released this month found that two-thirds of Americans are either very confident or confident that their state or local government will run a fair and accurate election in November, that’s down from the more the three-quarters of Americans who expressed such confidence in October 2024.
Such was the backdrop of a recent bipartisan election integrity panel held in Burlington last week.
Burlington GOP Chair Bill Oetjen said bipartisan conversations like the one hosted last week by the Burlington GOP Committee can make a difference.
“I think a lot of people think like I do that it’s time to try something other than throwing spitballs at each other from across the room and sit down at one table at the same time and have a discussion. I think we need to see more of this.”
Montpelier City Clerk John Odum, a Democrat, said integrity really comes down to two things.
“I think it’s about security and I think it’s about transparency. And I think you put those two things together and that equals integrity. And obviously as a certified ethical hacker I’m a security geek. Really the entire topic is so important and it’s so energizing.”
Election integrity has been a point of national discussion in recent years. In part, it comes after President Donald Trump has – without evidence – sown doubt about the results of the 2020 presidential election and as the Trump administration has continued to make voting security a point of emphasis, including by rallying behind legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship for new voters.
Friday’s forum revealed how the debate over election security remains raw. Discussion about mail-in voting proved to be a sticking point.
Rob Roper is a former chair of the Vermont Republican Party and also worked as president of the Ethan Allen Institute, a conservative think tank in the state. He said there is no verification system to assure mail-in ballots are cast by the voter it was sent to.
“What if I get a ballot for somebody else? It could be my spouse. It could be my adult child. It could be the person who lived in the house before me and they for some reason haven’t been taken off the checklist and their ballot was improperly sent to me. If I fill that out, sign their name, I know their name because it’s on the envelope that was delivered to my house. You need to give the election officials some sort of tool that can say yeah, that’s really Rob. And we don’t have that.”
Copeland Hanzas countered:
“Simply claiming that election fraud has happened or could happen in my view is not enough to justify the potential for disenfranchising voters. I live in a rural part of the state. Many of the people who live in my community can’t necessarily get to the polls before 7 p.m. when it closes. Those people are the people for whom the convenience of vote by mail makes the difference between them being able to participate and not.”
Odum says the ultimate judge of voting integrity is voter confidence.
“It breaks my heart as an election administrator, and I know others feel that way, that so many folks these days have such concerns over the democratic process. But at the end of the day, we should all be proud of it. This is a fundamental piece of what makes us American. This is something that folks have died for. And we should be proud of our electoral process and I think that’s the ultimate reflection of integrity.”
