Vermont § 2491 - Political subdivision; vote tabulators

§ 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.)