The Senate Committee on Government Operations on April 18 debated multiple provisions in House Bill 474, a miscellaneous elections bill, and agreed to remove the bill's section authorizing electronic ballot return after security testimony from Verified Voting.

The committee's action matters because the provisions under discussion would change how Vermont counts write‑in votes, who decides a candidate's official ballot name, whether routine post‑election audits must be random, and when write‑in candidates must notify clerks''all items that affect clerks' workloads and voter access.

Committee members heard from CJ Coles, deputy director of legislative affairs for Verified Voting, who told the panel that internet voting and electronic ballot return remain high risk. "Internet voting is electronic ballot return. Electronic ballot return is internet voting," Coles said, adding that national security and technical reviews since 2004 have repeatedly found unresolved vulnerabilities and that federal election‑security resources have been reduced.

After Coles's presentation several senators said the section on electronic ballot return should be removed from the bill. "I'll propose we strike this section," one committee member said on the record, and Senator Larry Hart replied, "I don't have any opposition." The committee directed staff to remove that section for the next draft.

Members spent the bulk of discussion on several operational changes in H.474:

- Write‑in candidate filing deadline: Current draft sets a 7:00 p.m. deadline on election day for a candidate to file as a write‑in. Several members and municipal clerks argued that gives clerks too little time to prepare ballot‑counting guidance; others said later cutoffs could suppress prospective write‑ins. Committee members agreed to take the weekend to consider moving the deadline earlier (a proposal floated was 5:00 p.m. on the Thursday before the election) and asked staff to draft amendment language for next week.

- Ballot name authority and alphabetization: Senators raised repeated examples in which a candidate's name on the voter checklist or a different administrative source has led to a name appearing on the ballot other than the name provided to the clerk. One senator asked that the candidate's consent form be the authority for how a candidate's name appears on the ballot; staff said an amendment to make the consent form controlling can be drafted. Committee members also discussed randomizing ballot order (lottery or randomized alphabet) to reduce first‑name advantage.

- Tallying blank vs. other write‑ins: The committee read written input from Sally Ober, Lincoln town clerk, who wrote that "names of fictitious or deceased persons who have not filed in accordance with section 23 70 of this title shall not be listed individually and shall be recorded on the tally sheet as a blank in vote in aggregate as other write‑ins." Committee members noted that the language could be ambiguous and instructed staff to prepare a draft removing the phrase "as a blank vote" so the tally format is clearer.

- Post‑election audits: The bill's draft removed the statutory word "random" from the requirement that the secretary of state conduct a post‑election audit within 30 days. Several senators said removing "random" would allow targeted audits without robust procedural checks. Committee members directed staff to return language that keeps a presumption of random audits but also creates a narrowly defined emergency pathway for a targeted or necessity audit, for example by empowering the secretary of state together with a legislative emergency decision body to order a specific audit when extraordinary circumstances warrant it.

- Petition‑filing timing: The committee agreed with municipal clerks' concerns and moved to restore a six‑week filing window (instead of five) before election day for petitions and related deadlines to preserve time for ballot proofing, printing and town reporting.

Discussion versus formal action: The committee issued several drafting directions to staff and voted to remove the electronic ballot return section. Most other items were left as instructions to prepare amendments and to reexamine the precise statutory wording next week; no final bill‑level vote on H.474 was taken on April 18.

Ending note: Committee members asked staff to circulate amendment drafts over the weekend and to bring revised language back at the committee's next meeting. "We will be hearing from Ben Kinsley... next Tuesday," the chair noted, referring to a scheduled witness on related election topics.