The Champlain Valley League of Women Voters is concerned about the effectiveness of motor voter registration, according to spokeswoman Sonja Schuyler. After Town Meeting Day, the League began hearing stories about town clerks being unable to find some voters who had registered through the Department of Motor Vehicles on their checklists. After polling Chittenden County clerks, the League found more than 600 cases of voters not being on the rolls, Schuyler said. Most were allowed to vote after being offered an affidavit to sign, but Schuyler said she had heard from some voters who were unable and unwilling to sign the form. “It creates a hassle for voters,” Schuyler said. The problems raise immediate concerns for the coming two elections, she said, including this summer’s gubernatorial primary election. There are also long-term questions about how well Vermont’s new automatic voter registration will work. Starting in 2017, Vermonters will automatically be placed on the voter rolls when they apply for or renew a driver’s license or nondriver identification card.
Will Senning, Vermont’s director of elections and campaign finance, said the issue of registrations arriving late to the clerks after being processed by the DMV has been an issue for years.
“Since Secretary Condos took office we have made significant improvements to this process,” Senning wrote in an email to the Burlington Free Press. Those updates include implementing electronic transmission of voter registration applications. In 2012, while the process was still manual, the secretary of state’s office received a stack of registrations after the November election, leading Secretary of State Condos to push for reforms.
Full Article: Vermont motor voter registration raises concerns.