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Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen


4.02.2007

 

Tracking votes

Last week, I wrote a post dissing Jim Barnett's idea that the Vermont Legislature needs electronic voting boards so people can more easily see how legislators vote. A day later, I had the occasion to guide someone through the process of looking votes up, and it gave me pause to reconsider.

Not the electronic scoreboards. I still think that'd be mighty gaudy in our quaint Statehouse. But is there a better way of archiving votes on particular bills so that the ordinary person could navigate the minefield?

Want to know how a particular legislator voted on everything? You can call his or her votes up on the Leggie Web site, but you've got to have a pretty good understanding of how things work to understand what the vote is.

Want to know how your senators voted last week on the campaign finance bill? You can look it up in that day's journal. Here's what you would find:

Thereupon, the bill was read the second time by title only pursuant to
Rule 43, the recommendation of amendment was agreed to and third reading of
the bill was ordered on a roll call, Yeas 28, Nays 0.
Senator Sears having demanded the yeas and nays, they were taken
and are as follows:
Roll Call
Those Senators who voted in the affirmative
were: Ayer, Bartlett, Campbell, Carris, Collins, Condos, *Coppenrath, Cummings,
Doyle, Giard, Hartwell, Illuzzi, Kitchel, Kittell, Lyons, MacDonald, Maynard,
Mazza, McCormack, Miller, Mullin, Nitka, Racine, Sears, Shumlin, Snelling,
Starr, White.
Those Senators who voted in the negative were: None.
Those
Senators absent and not voting were: Flanagan, Scott.

Not up to speed on your jargon? Well, the simplest way to check on roll call vote is to look it up by bill on the Leggie web site. You'll get list of all the members and how they voted. Maybe that's the best we can do.

Anybody have any better ideas for simplifying things?

- Terri Hallenbeck


Comments:
The Legislative website works great.

I've been able to look up the results of votes whenever I've needed/wanted to.
 
How about changing fonts about half way through? That's a winner!
 
that wasn't the final vote on the campaign finance bill, I think. I believe that was a vote for the third reading of the bill (whatever that means). I think that the final vote on the bill wasn't unanimous. See the "Random Items" post. This is one of the problems with the system. There are so many procedural things involved that it's difficult to figure out exactly what is being voted on.
 
Yes, I know the font didn't work right, but I thought you'd all learn to forgive me with time.

I also realize that was what we often refer to as the "preliminary" vote on campaign finance, or "second reading," or "ordering third reading." That's my point - it's not exactly everyday language. (And indeed, the final vote was not unanimous).

- TH
 
It's a lot easier to check individual legislators' voting records on the VT Legislature Web site than it is to check the voting records of individual members of the US House and US Senate. The Congressional Websites show you the roll-calls and how each member voted, but you can't see a member's full voting record over the session the way you can with the VT Legislature.
 
TH said, "it's not exactly everyday language."

Baseball isn't everyday language either. But people learn the language and they follow it and they understand it.

Democracy has it's own language. If you want to participate ... learn it.
 
TH said, "it's not exactly everyday language."

Baseball isn't everyday language either. But people learn the language and they follow it and they understand it.

Democracy has it's own language. If you want to participate ... learn it.
 
Trust me. The language that the legislature uses is not easy to learn , especially with regard to all the different readings of the bill, etc. I was at the Statehouse earlier this year watching the House and Symington stepped away for a moment and whoever took over for her was confused about what exactly the legislature was voting on (second reading, third reading, etc). So even those people who are involved directly get confused sometimes. It's unnecessarily complicated as is demonstrated by a brief discussion on the campaign finance vote here in this blog.
 
Every public library in Vermont has an internet connection.

We don't need fancy graphics.

We need citizens who know how to read and who understand parlementary procedure.
 
It's foolish to dumb down the democratic process.

Instead, we need to smarten-up the masses.
 
maybe you could explain for the rest of us ignorant people, then, the process of voting on a bill in terms of the different readings and things like that.
 
while you're at it I'd like to know how the electoral process represents democracy when it make certain peoples votes count more than others?

Rednalsi
 
what does that mean?
 
It means that Red drinks too much.
 
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