Vermont Public has been speaking with candidates for statewide office in the lead-up to Election Day, and today we're sharing conversations with the nominees for secretary of state.
Republican H. Brooke Paige is a retiree with a background in business management. He lives in the Orange County town of Washington, and often seeks the GOP nomination for a handful of statewide offices in an election cycle. This year he’s running for secretary of state and state auditor, and says he’d resign from the latter position if elected. He discussed the strategy behind his bid for auditor in a previous interview.
Meanwhile, incumbent Democrat Sarah Copeland Hanzas is seeking a second two-year term as secretary of state. Before moving to the executive branch, she served for 18 years in the Vermont House of Representatives.
Vermont Public’s Mitch Wertlieb recently sat down with Paige and Copeland Hanzas to talk about the secretary of state position. He started by asking both what they see as the most important duties for the role.
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and have been lightly edited for concision and clarity. They may contain errors, so please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
You can also read additional written responses from both candidates in Vermont Public's candidate questionnaire.
H. Brooke Paige
H. Brooke Paige: The secretary of state doesn't have one most important role. It's kind of a catch basket, if you like, for a lot of different things. I think most importantly, really, the secretary of state is supposed to be the scribe for the state and for the general assembly. And beyond that, there's other functions as far as businesses being registered and licensed, the Office of Professional Responsibility is assigned with the responsibility of overseeing businesses and making sure any complaints about those businesses are probably investigated. There's another small but important part; that's Safe at Home, which helps folks that are at risk to stay anonymous yet provide a facility for people to communicate with those folks. And last but certainly not least, is to act as an administrator for our elections.
Mitch Wertlieb: So we've received a lot of questions through our Citizens Agenda initiative from folks who are worried about the security of our voting systems here in Vermont. And I'm wondering, with unfounded claims of voter fraud becoming more common, do you think the job of secretary of state has changed in recent years?
H. Brooke Paige: I think that the secretary of state has changed the job, certainly most recently in the past couple of years. And I guess really the past four since Act 60 of 2021. The secretary of state is now encouraging people to mail their ballots back weeks before the election happens, and we've totally disturbed – completely disturbed — the entire premise of the election. Which is that candidates go out, they campaign, they advertise, they debate, they have town meetings — and all of this is to culminate on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Well now, with everybody encouraging folks to, “Oh, better get your ballot in early, because the post office isn't really reliable,” half the people will probably have already voted before they ever hear this message, and many of the other messages and many of the debates that are going on.
Mitch Wertlieb: The early voting really came about during the COVID pandemic, when people were afraid to be in person for voting, and a lot of the early mail-in ballots proved rather popular, And so, of course, now it has become a standard here. But there is a choice available for folks who can either mail in their ballot if they've already decided who they want to vote for, or they can wait till Election Day.
H. Brooke Paige: They certainly may, and I would encourage folks to go to their polling place on Election Day to really get the spirit and the esprit de corps of voting, and voting in person and carrying on the tradition of voting that we've had since the founding of our state in 1777.
You asked me about voter fraud, and I kind of feel like I kind of detoured off the path a little bit. In Vermont, the Democrats and Progressives have such an overwhelming majority in numbers that I don't think that there's all that much voter fraud, in the sense that people are stuffing ballot boxes or grabbing extra ballots. But the real problem is the perception that something's just not right with the elections anymore.
Mitch Wertlieb: I can understand the perception you're talking about. But there's perception, and then there's evidence, and it sounds like you're saying there's no evidence of massive voter fraud in Vermont that would upset the integrity of our elections. Would that be an accurate statement?
H. Brooke Paige: There's no massive voter fraud. Now, whether there's fraud or not — fraud can be a lot of different things other than just stuffing the ballot boxes, sure, but you have to have evidence that it's happening, right? And the secretary of state's office has neither the authority nor the resources to investigate anything. Ultimately, it's the attorney general's office that has that responsibility.
Mitch Wertlieb: I guess what I'm asking is, are you confident in the safety and the integrity of our elections heading into this November election?
H. Brooke Paige: Am I confident? No, I am not. Is there sufficient neglect and fraud to change the outcome of the election? I would say no, there is not sufficient mischief going on to change the outcome of most elections, at least. Don't forget, some of our elections here in Vermont, for [representatives] and for local office hinge on a handful of votes. And so if there's a little bit of something going on — that might be sufficient, in some cases to turn around or change an election outcome. Certainly not for statewide offices or U.S House or U.S. Senate. I think those results on election night reflect the outcome of the election.
Mitch Wertlieb: We received a handful of Citizens Agenda questions about ranked-choice voting. And that's where you rank your preferred candidates, then if your favorite doesn't win, your vote goes to the second preferred candidate on the list, and so on, until somebody wins a majority.
Now some of our listeners support the idea, and they want it adopted across Vermont. Some listeners really don't like that system. I'm wondering about your thoughts on ranked-choice voting and whether it should be used more often in Vermont?
H. Brooke Paige: I think it's a bad idea. I think it's a solution looking for a problem. And what I think would be much better, if we have situations where we think we want a majority of people to have voted for someone on the first round and nobody wins a majority, you immediately have a runoff election of the top two or top three candidates.
Sarah Copeland Hanzas
Sarah Copeland Hanzas: So our Office of Professional Regulation is licensing professionals across many different areas of our economy; that is focused on public protection in order to make sure that licensees are doing the jobs that they are trained to do. Our Elections Division, of course, is the one that has pretty direct touch points on Vermonters right now as we're conducting an election, and really ensuring that everyone is able to cast a ballot and that the ballots are tallied accurately and transparently — so Vermonters have faith in our elections. I know our Business Services Division touches 100,000 different businesses and nonprofits across the state, and our Archives and Records Administration is responsible for transparency into what government is doing on behalf of its people. And so I can't pick a favorite child we have. We have four distinct and very important functions.
Mitch Wertlieb: We've received a lot of questions through our Citizens Agenda initiative from folks who are worried about the security of our voting system here in Vermont. You mentioned elections, of course, being a really important part of the job. With unfounded claims of voter fraud becoming more common, do you think the job of the secretary of state has changed in recent years? I'm thinking in terms of voter education, scrutinizing or shoring up voting systems, anything that comes to mind?
Sarah Copeland Hanzas: Yeah, I think the role of the secretary of state is really important, but the key to our secure elections in Vermont is really the people. By people, I mean the 247 duly sworn town and city clerks who take an oath in order to follow the procedures and make sure that Vermont's ballots are accurately tallied, and that those results are reported. There's a lot of redundancy within our election processes that make sure that there are two sets of eyes on ballots, and that there are double checks to make sure that only legally registered voters are able to cast a ballot. So the combination of those people and processes, I think, should give Vermonters a great deal of comfort that our elections are well-run and that the results at the end of Election Day correspond to the Vermonters who voted.
Mitch Wertlieb: At the time you and I are speaking, we're seeing a very strong response so far to mail-in voting. Your Republican opponent for this job says he thinks mail-in balloting and early voting threatens the integrity of legal votes being cast, because he says Vermonters should vote on Election Day itself. Show up at the polls in order to do so, in order to at least reduce what he says is a perception among voters that fraud could be taking place otherwise. How would you address those concerns?
Sarah Copeland Hanzas: Well, I mean, I think that that perception of fraud is amplified by people who continue to say that there is fraud in the absence of any evidence. There are many, many Vermonters who don't have the ability to take time off on Election Day to go to their polling place in person. Many people live in one community and commute long distances to work, which requires them to leave the house before the polls are open in the morning and oftentimes not return to their home until after the polls are closed. And I don't think it's right to disenfranchise those people.
In 2020 when we did universal vote by mail for the first time in order to protect public health during the pandemic, people realized how nice it was to have some time with their ballot and to be able to do a little bit of research and listen to media reports of the candidates who are out there running for office. The feedback that I get from Vermonters is that they appreciate that, and they feel that it empowers them to vet the candidates a little bit more. Which is why our office has created the first ever universal voter guide for the 2024 election.
Mitch Wertlieb: Getting back to our Citizens Agenda initiative, we received a handful of questions about ranked-choice voting. And that's when you rank your preferred candidates; if your favorite doesn't win, your vote goes to the second preferred candidate, and so on, until somebody wins a majority.
Some of our listeners support the idea; they want it adopted across Vermont. And some listeners really don't like that system. I'm wondering about your thoughts on ranked-choice voting and whether it should be used more often?
Sarah Copeland Hanzas: Well, I will support moving to ranked-choice voting for the 2028 presidential primary. I think there are a lot of races in Vermont that don't usually have more than two candidates, and so ranked-choice voting doesn't work in those cases. But we always have more than two candidates for our presidential primary, and I think it's a great way to vote their heart, as opposed to making a strategic decision about who appears to have the most momentum or the most money in their campaign account.
We will begin that process in the Legislature this coming year, and it will also involve a fair amount of conversation and working groups with our town and city clerks, because this will be a change to the way we vote and we certainly need to make sure that our town and city clerks are able to inform us on what appears to work or not work in the way that that they need to conduct the elections. The long approach to the 2028 presidential primary will give us enough time to do all of that work.
Mitch Wertlieb: Sarah Copeland Hanzas, apart from what we've talked about already, what would your biggest priorities be if you're elected to another term?
Sarah Copeland Hanzas: So we have been working on modernizing our Safe at Home program so that Vermonters who need to access the confidentiality program can do so more independently and more directly with us. We can push information out to them in other ways that they can keep their home address confidential.
This story is part of Vermont Public’s Citizens Agenda approach to election coverage. We’re asking a simple question: What do you want the candidates to be discussing as they compete for your votes? Front Porch Forum is our lead outreach partner for this project.
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