BURLINGTON, Vt. -
Should Vermont scrap its current primary system for election and replace it with caucuses?
That's the question some city and town clerks are starting to ask in the wake of a taxing primary that they say wastes time, money, paper and manpower.
Sandy Pinsonault, President of the Vermont Clerks and Treasurers Association says the state spent about 660-thousand dollars this year just to print the primary ballots and they only saw a seven percent voter turnout.
"Not only is it costly to the state in printing those ballots, it's costly to the towns in manpower in paying for those workers to be at the polls --running the polls for those number of hours a day for such a poor turnout," she said.
Pinsonault says a caucus system would put the responsibility of selecting candidates in the parties' hands and remove the problem of recounts coming too close to federal election deadlines, as has happened in the past two primaries.
Any change would need to be enacted by the legislature.
