March 2006 Press Releases

New Statewide Voter Checklist Lets Towns Better Manage Vermont Voter Registration - March 3, 2006
Secretary of State Demonstrates New Statewide Voter Checklist to Legislators

Archives Opens On Line Record Service for Sunshine Week - March 14, 2006
State records are finding broader audiences through the Archives website

Press Advisory
Contact Marianne Lynch: 802-828-2148

Vermont Secretary of State

For Immediate Release:

March 2, 2006

 STATEWIDE VOTER CHECKLIST DEMONSTRATION

Learn how Vermont’s new statewide voter registration database works!

 Friday March 3^rd

10:00 am

State House Cafeteria  

Montpelier – At 10:00AM, March 3^rd, the Office of the Secretary of State will demonstrate the state’s new voter registration database at the statehouse.  Legislators and the press corps have been invited to view this new program.

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gave states until January 1, 2006 to put in place a single, uniform, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list that is defined, maintained, and administered at the state level.  Using the statewide checklist Vermont’s town clerks can add, edit, update, challenge and purge voters using a remote desktop application. The program also permits election administrators to check for and remove duplicate voters from the checklist and confirm address information with other state agencies.   Vermont spent approximately $600,000 to develop the Statewide Voter Checklist computer application. 

 PRESS RELEASE

Contact Marianne Lynch: 802-828-2148

Vermont Secretary of State

For Immediate Release:

March 2, 2006

NEW STATEWIDE VOTER CHECKLIST LETS TOWNS BETTER MANAGE VERMONT VOTER REGISTRATIONS

Secretary of State Demonstrates New Statewide Voter Checklist to Legislators

 Montpelier. Today, Secretary of State Deb Markowitz demonstrated the state’s new statewide voter checklist to the Legislators in the State House.  Markowitz said, “as of January 1^st all Vermont voters are part of the statewide voter registration database, as required by the Help America Vote act of 2002 (HAVA) and our town clerks are managing their town’s portion of the statewide database.”

 HAVA was passed by Congress in response to the 2000 election controversies which highlighted serious deficiencies in how we run our Federal elections.  In an effort to prevent voter fraud, and to ensure that checklists were being properly maintained, HAVA required every state to have a single, uniform, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list that is defined, maintained, and administered at the state level. “Our goal has been to create a system that meets the requirements of Federal Law and continues to allow municipal clerks to manage the data in as user-friendly a manner as possible.”   Markowitz said

 Markowitz went on to say, “We believe Vermont’s new statewide checklist will help improve election administration.  The statewide checklist gives our clerks the ability to clean up their checklists by removing voters who are registered in another Vermont community.”  Markowitz added, “Unlike many of our neighboring states, in Vermont, we made the decision to build the checklist “in-house” so that we would not be expending millions of dollars on a vendor’s product that would not be tailored to the specific needs of our clerks, and Vermont law.”  “We have spent less than $400,000 to date,” She said. 

 New Hampshire has spent $1.9 million on the development of their statewide voter registration database, which is not yet complete.  Maine signed a contract for over $2 million, but has terminated that contract because of lack of compliance by the vendor. Wyoming, with less than 260,000 voters, spent $8.9 million designing their checklist program, which is also not yet up and running. 

 Markowitz attributes the success of the project to the way the program was developed.  She said, “We began the development process by consulting with clerks in both large and small communities around the state.  Our program developer made site visits to see how the individual clerks managed their checklists using a variety of programs.  As a result of the clerks’ suggestions, our program includes many features that were not required by Federal law but that are designed to make it easier for our town clerks to manage their portions of the checklist. 

 Markowitz said, “The checklist program continues to evolve.  We will be adding additional features in the coming year, including an absentee ballot management module and a daily activity report.  We also look forward to identifying duplicate registrations in the system so that clerks can further clean up their checklists, and we expect to be working with the New England states to find ways to catch and correct duplicate registrations across state lines.”

 Markowitz said, “We are proud of the success of our statewide voter checklist program.  With an in-house development we not only saved millions of dollars but we have had better control over the product, and it has given us the flexibility to respond to changing needs of Vermont’s town clerks.” 

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PRESS RELEASE

Contact Marianne Lynch: 802-828-2148

Vermont Secretary of State

For Immediate Release:

March 14, 2006

 Archives Opens On Line Record Service For Sunshine Week

State records are finding broader audiences through the Archives website.

Montpelier. In celebration of the second annual Sunshine Week, Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz and State Archivist Gregory Sanford are pleased to announce the release of Vermont State Archives ONLINE.  Sunshine Week is for promoting open government and the public’s right to know.

 The Vermont State Archives ONLINE is a new service that is designed to increase access to State archival records. Secretary Markowitz said, “ONLINE includes two databases that provide detailed information about records accessible through the Vermont State Archives. Most of the records described in ONLINE are open for public use and inspection.” In the upcoming year, the Vermont State Archives plans to expand its ONLINE services to further encourage transparency in State government. Additional databases as well as guides and other resources for understanding and accessing State records and information are slated to be added this summer.

 Distributed to a handful of Internet lists in late February 2006, ONLINE is already a hit with the research and genealogical communities. ResearchBuzz, a website that provides daily updates on search engines and looks for anything that a “reference librarian” would find useful, reviewed ONLINE on March 3, 2006. Since the review, news of the new Vermont service has spread quickly through cyberspace. One blogger, referring to the NYE Index Database offered through ONLINE, prefaced his discussion by stating, “When an old card index gets digitised it is good news for all of us.”

 Secretary Markowitz said, “Vermont State Archives ONLINE demonstrate that public records are important State resources.”  Markowitz said, “Three years ago this month, Governor Douglas signed what is often referred to as the ‘Archives Law.’  The newly passed legislation changed the Vermont State Archives from a passive to an active record repository, one that now collaborates with all three branches of State government to identify and preserve valuable records of the State.” 

 Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz and Vermont State Archivist Gregory Sanford are working closely with the House and Senate Institutions committees to expand the Archives’ research facility to better accommodate the public and additional records. A new Archives facility will enable State agencies to transfer their permanent records directly to the Vermont State Archives, where they will be organized and made available to the public.   

 Vermont State Archives ONLINE is available through the Vermont State Archives website at: http://vermont-archives.org/research/database/