Quick News Bit

Governor signs bill allowing remote municipal meetings

0

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Gov. Phil Scott has signed a bill into law allowing municipal governments to pass budgets with pre-printed ballots for their annual town meetings this year and to hold informational meetings about budgets remotely as COVID-19 continues to spread in the state.

Municipalities may also move their annual meetings, which were often held in-person, to a date later in the year.

This year, Vermont’s traditional Town Meeting Day will be held March 1, although some communities and school districts use alternative dates.

A statement from Scott on Friday said he signed the bill because he believes public concerns about large gatherings may discourage some from participating in in-person meetings. But he said the Legislature missed an opportunity to expand voter access further by expanding automatic mailing of ballots to include school budget votes, local elections and primary elections.

“General elections already have the highest voter turnout. What we need is increased voter participation for elections like those on Town Meeting Day or school budget votes, which experience a fraction of the turnout of general elections,” he said.

Scott said he will ask the Legislature to start working with the secretary of state on a timeframe and process to mail ballots to registered voters for all elections in Vermont.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

For all the latest Health News Click Here 

 For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! NewsBit.us is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.

Leave a comment