(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, a board of civil authority may, at a meeting held not less than 60 days prior to an election and warned pursuant to 24 V.S.A. § 801, vote to require the political subdivision for which it is elected to use vote tabulators for the registering and counting of votes in subsequent local, primary, or general elections, or any combination of those.
(b) A town with 1,000 or more registered voters as of December 31 in an even-numbered year shall use vote tabulators for the registering and counting of votes in subsequent general elections.
(c)(1) The Office of the Secretary of State shall pay the following costs associated with this section by using federal Help America Vote Act funds, as available:
(A) full purchase and warranty cost of vote tabulators, ballot boxes, and two memory cards for each tabulator;
(B) annual maintenance costs of vote tabulators for each town; and
(C) the first $500.00 of the first pair of a vote tabulator’s memory cards’ configuration costs for each primary and general election.
(2) A town shall pay the remainder of any cost not covered by subdivision (1) of this subsection.
(d)(1) Notwithstanding a town’s use of vote tabulators under this section or any other provision of law, the Secretary of State may suspend the use of vote tabulators and require the hand count of votes in an election if the Secretary determines there are reasonable grounds to believe that the vote tabulators to be used in that election may have been rendered inoperable.
(2) Upon such a determination, the Secretary shall alert the clerks of the affected municipalities of his or her decision as soon as practicable.