South Burlington won’t include non-citizen votes on March ballot

This story of Liberty Darr first published On November 14 at The Other Paper

The South Burlington Charter Committee told the city council last week that the expansion of all resident electorates is too complicated to put before city voters at this time.

All resident voting would allow all legal residents of the city, including non-citizens, to vote in local elections and other additional school or city votes. The idea was first presented to the city council in September by the city’s Democratic committee in hopes of bringing it to a vote next March, but the committee said that wasn’t possible.

By a 4-1 vote, the city council passed the resolution requesting that the charter committee bring its recommendation back to the council by Nov. 4. But according to the committee, the work is not done yet.

The charter committee is unique in that it only meets when given a specific mandate. It was originally created in 2022 to explore different governance models and expansion of the council and the South Burlington School Board.

But for committee members, the latest accusation is very different from the previous one.

“I see this as a pro-democracy step toward having more voices representing our community. But there are many more questions,” member Kate Bailey said. “This legislation, if we change the statute, will directly impact the lives of people who are not used to having their voices heard in government.”

He explained that in other processes, the committee has time to gather more public input through surveys, public outreach and hearings. With such a tight timeline, the committee is struggling to find enough information to make a thoughtful recommendation.

Committee chairwoman Anne LaLonde said members have met twice in the past two months, first to go over the process in detail and also to compile questions from each committee member on the issue.

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“We started a list and it was a really long list,” he said. “It was clear that people were uncomfortable at the first meeting where the time frame was tight.”

Data compiled so far by the committee has shown some complexity behind the scenes in the three other cities in Vermont that have adopted similar charter changes — Montpelier, Winooski and Burlington.

There are about 1,450 legal residents of voting age in Burlington, and 116 of them — 7 percent — are registered to vote, according to preliminary data city clerks presented to the committee. 97 votes were cast in March 2024. There are about 900 legal non-citizens in Winooski, and in the three elections in which all residents were allowed to vote in the city, 54, 25 and 16 people voted.

There are not 18 citizens registered to vote in Montpelier, and in the three elections in which all residents voted, 5, 8 and 13 votes were cast.

All three clerks told the committee that their biggest problem was keeping a separate voter checklist because they couldn’t enter non-citizen voters into the statewide checklist system, and that they had to find manual ways to keep the list separate, which could be substantially time-consuming. Clerks also expressed concern about the need for extra employees to oversee a separate registration desk at polling places to prevent non-citizen voters from receiving state or federal ballots in non-local elections.

The committee reported that the cost would also vary greatly if an interpreter was available in the city. For example, Winooski pays $3,000 for translators and has ballots prepared in 14 languages; This costs the city another $2,900.

Aside from religious complexities, all-resident voting in the three cities has led to legal challenges over the years. Most recently, Montpelier’s charter amendment was upheld by the Vermont Supreme Court in January 2023, and the court ruled that the amendment did not violate the Vermont Constitution. A similar appeal in Winooski was rejected by the Chittenden Superior Court last December.

Burlington’s charter change is the latest to be challenged, and litigation is ongoing at the Supreme Court, but it specifically questions whether a vote on school funding is merely a local issue because of the way education is funded in Vermont.

But Bailey, the former president of the South Burlington School Board, explained that there has always been a tug of war between local and state control when it comes to school budgets.

“It’s on the local ballot and you make decisions that will affect your local taxes and that will affect the kids in your district,” he said. “When I think about all residents voting, I think about how noncitizens pay taxes, directly or indirectly; “They contribute to our economy and send their children to schools.”

While the committee has not made any recommendations this month, it will continue to work over the next few months and eventually present a recommendation to the council, which will either accept the recommendation or not.

“This feels like the kind of issue that I really want to be intentional about and address carefully, because I want this to promote community, democracy, and inclusion, not promote fear and otherness in our community,” Bailey said.