MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Two Democratic incumbents, Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas and State Auditor Doug Hoffer, will both face off against Republican H. Brooke Paige, who once again is on the ballot in more than one race.
The State Auditor’s Office attempts to hold the government responsible by analyzing how taxpayer funds are used. They write reports and come up with recommendations to save money, stop fraud and spend wisely.
“We pick programs, agencies and departments to review how they’re doing, and we measure their performance against objective standards,” Hoffer said.
Hoffer, a Williams College and Law School graduate, has held the position for 12 years. After working in Burlington’s Community Economic Development Office under then-mayor Bernie Sanders, he pursued a career in public policy before winning the auditor’s office in 2012, and he has no desire to give up the spot.
“I enjoy the work, we have a great crew, and there’s more work to be done,” he said.
Hoffer and his team have completed more than 60 reports in his tenure. He’s most proud of his investigation into nursing home abuse, his recommendation to change the state employee health insurance system and his report on the Corrections Department’s health care contract.
His opponent H. Brooke Paige has quite a different story. The top-hat-styling Republican fell in love with Vermont and started his time in the state by commuting to work in Philadelphia. Now he works part time at a creamery and volunteers for the state Historical Society, the Statehouse and the select board in Washington. He wants to breathe fresh air into Montpelier.
“I think that people are kind of getting tired of things,” Paige said.
Paige says he doesn’t really want to be the auditor, and if he’s elected, he says he will tell the governor to replace him with Linda Joy Sullivan, who he believes is the right person for the job.
“The people that are in these positions of secretary of state, auditor of accounts, treasurer, attorney general, really should be career people,” said Paige.
In his campaign for secretary of state, he wants to end early voting and is OK with absentee ballots as long as they are opened only on Election Day. He says it’s what is written in Vermont’s Constitution.
“The bigger problem is the apathy and the distrust of our election system that’s been brought on by all this liberalization of the voting process,” said Paige.
The Vermont Secretary of State’s Office performs numerous functions including overseeing elections, the Office of Professional Regulation and the Vermont State Archives, among other duties.
Incumbent Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas disputes the claim that Vermont’s elections are untrustworthy.
“There were seven instances of irregularities reported in 2020, six of the seven of them were found to be those kinds of human error, and the seventh was someone who was doing that on purpose to try to test the system. I don’t have concerns about the security of our elections,” Copeland Hanzas said.
Copeland Hanzas grew up in Corinth and graduated from the University of Vermont. She was a teacher and a stay-at-home mom before she served in the Vermont Legislature for 18 years. In 2022, she was elected secretary of state.
“I’ve been really excited over these first two years in office to take what’s working well because when you have a common passion point of public service, everything else that you need to do really falls in line behind that,” said Copeland Hanzas.
She hopes to continue commissioning new technology for those interacting with her office, outreach and making voting guides if she wins her bid on this year’s Election Day, Nov. 5.
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Publish date : 2024-09-24 11:03:00
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