An Aged Vermont Whine

S.117 becomes law with Gubernatorial Whining Statement

Governor Douglas allowed S.117, an act changing the date of Vermont’s Primary Election to become law yesterday without his signature. This new law which moves the primary to August 24th brings Vermont into compliance with a Federal requirement regarding a minimum of 45 days for overseas voters (mostly service members) to return their absentee ballots.

Other states that faced this issue include Minnesota which made similar changes months ago. Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty signed it with Minnesota National guard troops present at the ceremony.
However Governor Douglas opposed the change, and until today’s acquiescence had been coy about whether he would veto the bill.

Characteristically he did not miss the opportunity to restate his well known objections including his concern that “Vermonters often enjoy their hard-earned vacations and surely are not focused on an election…”
Accompanying his press release with his own petulant version of a presidential signing statement, Douglas offered up a sort of gubernatorial whining statement that lamented ;

“But now, in the guise of assuring that the votes of our brave men and women in the military are counted, as of course they should be, the Legislature has passed S. 117, which in all likelihood will discourage voter participation.

Evslin’s Bureaucratic Cloud

"But this switch to web-based government, just like the switch to web-based flight reservations and banking, means better service to clients at lower cost to the service provider. Not too good to be true."

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas’ resident smart man, Tom Evslin,is still threatening Vermont with an earlier promise of a government that will be run just like web-based flight reservations and banking services. He has expanded on this theme lately and now highlights the wonder of ATMs and computerized bank records as examples of efficiency for state government. Another newly added folksy illustration of life after our technological revolution is how easy it will be to apply for a hunting/fishing license. (Currently Hunting /fishing licenses can easily be purchased at most general stores in Vermont.) Perhaps he’s keeping it simple out of consideration for those that don’t share his vision of Vermont “in the cloud.”

But once records become electronic, they're wherever you need them to be. It doesn't matter whether they're in a corporate data center, on a disk in a state office. or somewhere off in a huge computer center operated by Google or Amazon (technically this is called being "in the cloud"). When you need access to them, they're where you are. You can withdraw money from any ATM (at least if you don't mind fees); you can charge at any store; and you ought to be able to go into any government office to do whatever government business you need to do.

He never touches the potential problems with cloud storage of public records on systems accessible through Google or Amazon. Previously his performance at the Vermont State Recovery Office was rated 47th out of 50 at providing required public access to economic stimulus spending and contract bid information. Evslin is a smart fellow, yet he persists in making simple arguments for his brave new world, with only fleeting references to what he calls “current organizational constraints.” These constraints would surely involve “attendant discomforts, confusion, and fears,” but Evslin glosses over these specifics and proceeds speedily past. No reason to dwell on job and pay cuts.

Anyone with a minimum familiarity with web-based transactions knows the fur-balls that electronic data can cough up. I wish he trusted in his vision and Vermonters enough to raise the level of discussion above 1960’s Popular Science Magazine. Stop chatting up the wonder of a government as futuristic as ATMs and airline flight reservation systems. How about a discussion about who wins and who loses in your bureaucratic cloud? Get out from the closed door meetings and explain to Vermont citizens, (or clients as you call them) how these changes will challenge them.