MONTPELIER \u2013 The votes are in and after 230 years Vermont has a new state motto. Starting in January of 2020 \u201cI Don\u2019t Care What You Do, Just Leave Me Alone\u201d will replace \u201cFreedom and Unity\u201d on the Seal of Vermont.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new motto is a result of a referendum spearheaded by Bennington Rep. Camille Torres. Torres began the push for a new motto late last year after seeing the November general election\u2019s low voter turnout number. \u201cJust under 57% of registered voters in Vermont had voted and I really wanted to do something to get people excited about their government\u201d says Torres, \u201cI thought a new state motto would be something fun people on both sides of the aisle could engage with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Torres convinced legislators to enact a special new mail-in referendum intended to reach voters who wouldn\u2019t normally come to a polling station. The mail-in ballots, which were sent to every registered voter in the state, contained five proposed mottos submitted by five randomly selected state legislators. After the ballots were returned and counted Franklin Representative Luke Marsh\u2019s \u201cI Don\u2019t Care What You Do, Just Leave Me Alone\u201d was declared the winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI did what?\u201d said Marsh after being asked how it felt to have his motto selected by the voters, \u201cI write that on a lot of requests from other representatives, they are always sending me pointless crap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vermonters seem to be more or less indifferent about the result. \u201cThere was a what?\u201d said Montpelier resident Jeff Rice who was present during Thursday\u2019s press briefing announcing the referendum\u2019s result, \u201cI thought this was the line to pay parking tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not what I expected but the people have spoken\u201d Torres said at the press briefing. She also commented that more surprising than the result was that none of the other legislators\u2019 proposed mottos finished in the top five. \u201cMy staff and I wanted the people to have a say if they didn\u2019t agree with any of the representatives\u2019 mottos so we left a line blank for write-ins. We\u2019re not sure if people realized they were responding to a referendum though because we had a lot of non sequiturs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second through fifth place finishers were: \u201cI don\u2019t care\u201d, \u201cWho is this?\u201d, \u201cUNSUBSCRIBE\u201d, and \u201cHow did you find me?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"