If the results of that election are overturned, Republicans would be left with only 52 seats in the House, just one more than the 51 needed to sustain a veto, said House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton, Monday afternoon.
“This seat’s very important to us,” said Turner.
House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, says that at a time when President Donald Trump is alleging widespread voter fraud, Democrats are simply trying to ensure that the outcome of a narrow election merits the full trust of the voting public.
“I don’t expect a lot of irregularities, but given all of the national, frankly, misinformation about the number of illegal votes and all that kind of stuff, which we have no evidence for, I think the committee felt like it was worth just double-checking,” said Johnson.
After a recount conducted by the town clerks of Chelsea, Vershire, Corinth, Washington, Williamstown and Orange failed to flip the election-day tally, Hatch-Davis filed an appeal in November, but a Superior Court judge upheld Frenier’s victory.
When an appeal of that ruling was rejected, Hatch-Davis turned to the Legislature, which the state constitution grants the right to judge “the elections and qualifications of its own members.”
After the House voted in favor of a recount, the Committee on Government Operations was charged with drafting policies and procedures to govern a legislative recount. Today, a four-member subcommittee of the Government Operations Committee will present recommendations to the full committee for a vote.
Johnson said she expects that the recommendations, which will include a timeline to finish the recound, will make it back to the House floor for action by the end of the week.
Frenier on Monday declined to comment, pending the outcome of today’s actions by the committee.
At every turn, Republican lawmakers have opposed HR 8, the bill that calls for a recount; the four Republican Government Operations Committee members voted against recommending the bill for consideration by the House, which approved it on a largely partisan vote, 76-59.
Despite that opposition, Republicans continue to participate in the process. The subcommittee tasked with drafting the policies is comprised of two Republicans, one Democrat and one Progressive, and the actual recount will be conducted by a group including 11 Republicans, five Democrats and six Progressives, with Government Operations Committee Chairwoman Rep. Maida Townsend, D-South Burlington, acting as presiding officer, with support from Turner and the Progressive party chairman.
Townsend said Monday that every effort has been made to ensure a bipartisan, and transparent, process.
“Sometimes I think I’m in the Twilight Zone. I can’t believe my ears when I hear people describe this committee as a partisan thing,” she said.
The Orange-1 election was one of a few closely contested elections that were subjected to a new set of recount procedures that mandated the use of voter tabulation machines. The law that created the mandate, as well as guidance from the office of the Secretary of State, were criticized by both Democrats and Republicans as being too vague, which left town clerks to make on-the-spot decisions about how to navigate thorny questions.
Another recount, between then-Rep. Sarah Buxton, D-Tunbridge and Rep. David Ainsworth, R-Royalton, resulted in a one-vote victory for Ainsworth, but only after six weeks of uncertainty during which Superior Court Judge Robert Gerety ordered two different recounts.
Townsend said that the Government Operations Committee is working on a fix to the recount rules, and hopes to see legislation brought to the House floor sometime in 2017.
“The process doesn’t always line up with one’s intention,” she said.
One of the bones of contention in the Frenier recount has to do with Thetford Town Clerk Tracy Borst and Fairlee Town Clerk Georgette Wolf-Ludwig, who participated in the recount, though their towns don’t fall within the Orange-1 District.
While deliberating about whether to move forward with the recount, the Government Operations Committee heard testimony from the town clerks of the six towns in the Orange-1 District, but not from Borst or Wolf-Ludwig.
Borst and Wolf-Ludwig have issued a joint public statement in which they expressed “deep concern” about not having been invited to testify.
The two clerks disputed a comment, made publicly by Townsend, that there was question as to whether the ballots had been inspected by humans, as well as by tabulation machines, during the recount.
“Representative Townsend is mistaken if she believes the ballots were not visually inspected in the recount process. This all could have been clarified if the officials that conducted the recount had been invited to testify,” they wrote.
Townsend responded on Monday that the committee had heard conflicting testimony from the other six clerks as to how the recount had actually unfolded.
“We had people at the very same place insisting they heard or saw different things. People are on the record. No one is trying to pull wool over our eyes. They know they’re on the record and are trying to tell the truth. We take it at face value. But there was conflicting evidence.”
Testimony from the two clerks, she said, was unlikely to have fully resolved the conflict.
The two clerks were not asked to testify, said Townsend, because no one on the committee realized that they had participated in the recount, and no one in the room, including the other testifying clerks, Frenier, or the Republican members of the committee, had raised the issue.
Turner responded that gathering all of the relevant facts is the responsibility of the committee.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.