§ 2491. Political subdivision; vote tabulators
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, a board of civil authority may,
at a meeting held not less than 60 days prior to an election and warned pursuant to
24 V.S.A. § 801, vote to require the political subdivision for which it is elected to use vote tabulators
for the registering and counting of votes in subsequent local, primary, or general
elections, or any combination of those.
(b) A town with 1,000 or more registered voters as of December 31 in an even-numbered
year shall use vote tabulators for the registering and counting of votes in subsequent
general elections.
(c)(1) The Office of the Secretary of State shall pay the following costs associated with
this section by using federal Help America Vote Act funds, as available:
(A) full purchase and warranty cost of vote tabulators, ballot boxes, and two memory cards
for each tabulator;
(B) annual maintenance costs of vote tabulators for each town; and
(C) the first $500.00 of the first pair of a vote tabulator’s memory cards’ configuration
costs for each primary and general election.
(2) A town shall pay the remainder of any cost not covered by subdivision (1) of this
subsection.
(d)(1) Notwithstanding a town’s use of vote tabulators under this section or any other provision
of law, the Secretary of State may suspend the use of vote tabulators and require
the hand count of votes in an election if the Secretary determines there are reasonable
grounds to believe that the vote tabulators to be used in that election may have been
rendered inoperable.
(2) Upon such a determination, the Secretary shall alert the clerks of the affected municipalities
of his or her decision as soon as practicable. (Added 1977, No. 269 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; amended 1979, No. 200 (Adj. Sess.), § 49; 2003, No. 59, § 20; 2013, No. 161 (Adj. Sess.), § 27; 2015, No. 30, § 11; 2017, No. 50, § 22; 2017, No. 128 (Adj. Sess.), § 3, eff. May 16, 2018.)