On May 18, Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos distributed a press release in defense of S.15, an elections bill currently under debate in the Vermont legislature, that would make permanent the practice of mailing live ballots to all active voters regardless of request.

What follows is a point by point refutation of claims made by the Secretary of State regarding the content and potential impact of S.15 on Vermont elections by Rob Roper, president of the Ethan Allen Institute. Points made are in red italics.

Three lawsuits now in progress are likely to expand parental choice in Vermont education. Rather than dealing with “an evolving and murky legal landscape”, the legislature should reform our laws to incorporate the new legal requirements into a well-conceived parental choice - provider competition model. 

The Washington Post reported last week that  “nearly 40 Senate Democrats are pushing President Biden to overturn a Trump-era policy that helps some nonprofits that pour money into elections conceal their donors’ names.

According to theories surrounding the concept of “systemic racism,” disparate outcomes between races in any system is all the evidence you need to conclude that systemic racism exists in that system. Hence, our healthcare system is deemed systemically racist because Blacks are disproportionately impacted by Covid-19.

Well, by that standard, S.15, the elections bill under debate in the Vermont House of Representatives as we speak that would make permanent mailing ballots to all registered voters regardless of request, would appear to be injecting a systemically racist policy into Vermont’s voting system.