There has been a lot of talk about voting rights in the past week, since the United States Supreme Court ruled on the federal Voting Rights Act. Meanwhile, in the Northeast Kingdom Village of Derby Line, the Village Trustees have been addressing their own constitutionally questionable voting requirement.
The Village is requesting state approval for a change to its 1898 charter, which stipulates voters must have lived in the Village for a year before being eligible to vote.
In regard to the annual village meeting, the charter currently states:
The annual meeting of said corporation shall be holden on the first Tuesday in April ... and at such meetings none but inhabitants qualified to vote in town meeting in said town and who shall have resided for one year within the bounds of said corporation shall be entitled to vote.
In its request for a charter change the trustees wrote:
As the charter currently stands the League of Cities and towns has made it perfectly clear the last sentence in section (2) will not pass a legal challenge.
The 115 year old charter has been updated a half-dozen times since its inception, most recently in 1982, but the one-year residency requirement for voters has never been addressed.
The trustees are also asking to change another residency requirement in the charter. Currently the charter stipulates Village officers - including the clerk, treasurer and delinquent tax collector - must all be Derby Line Village residents. The proposed language allows these posts to be filled by residents of the Town of Derby who live outside the Village limits.
The first hearing on the charter changes is scheduled for July 2. A second hearing will be held on August 6 and a final local vote on the new charter will be held August 20.