Friday, August 31, 2012
debatable debates
Gov Shumlin's man has announced that the Gov is too busy for the traditional AARP debate. Nope, he will only do debates sponsored by media organizations. IF Annette should come out on top, how will they justify trying to keep her out of whatever debates he does have time for now that they've already used the excuse of busyness. Will he consider Bread and Puppet's Mr-Everything-is-Fine a media organization?
press clippings
VT Digger's editor Anne Galloway reported on the write-in race yesterday referring to the write-in campaigners as "NIMBY bedfellows". Should we adopt this as the name of our group or does it sound too much like a club devoted to slumber parties?
How do they get off with this NIMBY thing? They imply that when you flip the light switch, someone's backyard has been trashed. Therefore it's anti-social to insist that it be someone else's backyard rather than your own. Isn't that where they are coming from? So that means they are leaving no space for possible systems that don't really trash anyone's backyard, such as very localized generation like small wind turbines, solar as a major component, etc. The real problem is that a non-destructive system like this might not be massive enough to accommodate the needs of operations like the Jay Mtn's water slides. Just about the biggest user of electricity in the state is the ski industry, devoted to making artificial snow and lugging tourists up the mountains and--key point--exporting most of the profits out of state. Right up there is IBM. Shouldn't we concentrate on the big fish, holding them to account, measuring their contribution to the state, its society and economy as against the huge amount of power they consume?
John Dillon at Vermont Public Radio did a decent balanced story on this race yesterday too. This morning's repeat was edited down to exclude commentary from Stephanie Kaplan and thus was slanted quite differently.
How do they get off with this NIMBY thing? They imply that when you flip the light switch, someone's backyard has been trashed. Therefore it's anti-social to insist that it be someone else's backyard rather than your own. Isn't that where they are coming from? So that means they are leaving no space for possible systems that don't really trash anyone's backyard, such as very localized generation like small wind turbines, solar as a major component, etc. The real problem is that a non-destructive system like this might not be massive enough to accommodate the needs of operations like the Jay Mtn's water slides. Just about the biggest user of electricity in the state is the ski industry, devoted to making artificial snow and lugging tourists up the mountains and--key point--exporting most of the profits out of state. Right up there is IBM. Shouldn't we concentrate on the big fish, holding them to account, measuring their contribution to the state, its society and economy as against the huge amount of power they consume?
John Dillon at Vermont Public Radio did a decent balanced story on this race yesterday too. This morning's repeat was edited down to exclude commentary from Stephanie Kaplan and thus was slanted quite differently.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
another discrepancy
Two friends of mine from Middlesex wrote to tell me that they had both voted Annette Smith for gov on the Prog ballot. I just got off the phone with the Middlesex town clerk who told me that there were 10 Prog ballots turned in and all were BLANK on the governor's line. I specifically asked if there were no write ins and she said, No, no write-ins.
What gives? Much the same think in Sutton, Westmore, Waltham. Is it the case that some towns just are even counting write-ins?
UPDATE It seems that Middlesex recorded 5 votes for Annette Smith for LT GOV.
UPDATE 2: Sutton has changed its total from 4 to 7 votes for Annette.
It's clearly time to think about a recount and for the Sec of State to get to the bottom of all these discrepancies.
What gives? Much the same think in Sutton, Westmore, Waltham. Is it the case that some towns just are even counting write-ins?
UPDATE It seems that Middlesex recorded 5 votes for Annette Smith for LT GOV.
UPDATE 2: Sutton has changed its total from 4 to 7 votes for Annette.
It's clearly time to think about a recount and for the Sec of State to get to the bottom of all these discrepancies.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
c l i f f h a n g e r
According to the Sec of State, some town clerks had a hard time with the electronic reporting system and still have not reported results to the Sec of State. Clerks in a half a dozen towns have reported results to us and best we can figure at the moment the score is roughly:
Martha 304
Annette 308
This is really just an estimate as we cannot be sure that all of the write-ins are for Annette. More puzzling: it is certain that some valid write-ins for Annette haven't been counted for reasons we are seeking to determine.
hanging in the balance
At 1:25 pm the score is
Martha Abbott 299 (acc. to Sec of State) plus in particular 2 precincts in Burlington not yet reported
Annette Smith 259 (acc. to Sec of State) plus in particuar Craftsbury where Annette got 33 real but untallied votes for a total of 292. Plus there are a number of undercounts, towns such as Walden where we know Annette got 8 votes even though they reported only 1.
69 precincts have not yet reported.
discrepancy in Walden?
The town clerk of Walden said that the tally there on the Progressive ticket (1 for Martha Abbott) was what she was given by the vote counters. We have reason to believe that there were at least 7 votes cast on the Progressive ballot for Annette. It is also the case that Roger Fox, a board member of Washington Electric Coop, was counting votes in Walden. He is a strong industrial wind advocate and not a supporter of Annette Smith. Certainly nobody is making any accusations against Fox or anyone else but it does seem that there is a major discrepancy here.
There's a good article on the write-in at Burlington Free Press here
There's a good article on the write-in at Burlington Free Press here
limbo
Everything you read on the Sec of State website is preliminary. Nothing is final.
That said, it still appears that all write-in votes have not been turned in to the Sec of State for posting on the web. For example, in Barre, Walden, and Jericho it seems that write-in votes for Annette have not been included in the results. (State totals reported as of 9am are: 288 Abbott vs 214 'write in".)
AP is reporting that almost all precincts have been counted but the Sec of State's page has results from only 184 of the 275 precincts. That is because AP has a deal with the town clerks to send them results on contested races directly while the Sec of State's records depend on whether a town clerk is disposed to send in results electronically via very temperamental software.
In general, the Sec of State says, the results will not be final until they have been received by the Sec of State (deadline Friday), tallied by the Sec of State (Monday) and then certified (Tuesday). The results posted on the Sec of State web page, Sec Condos stressed, are preliminary. It is a voluntary system so it is up to each town clerk whether or not to send in results.
Still you are encouraged to consult the Sec of State's page, use the index to view the reported results in your town, and contact you Town Clerk if you suspect that all the write in votes haven't been tallied. If you suspect there is a problem, please also contact us here.
That said, it still appears that all write-in votes have not been turned in to the Sec of State for posting on the web. For example, in Barre, Walden, and Jericho it seems that write-in votes for Annette have not been included in the results. (State totals reported as of 9am are: 288 Abbott vs 214 'write in".)
AP is reporting that almost all precincts have been counted but the Sec of State's page has results from only 184 of the 275 precincts. That is because AP has a deal with the town clerks to send them results on contested races directly while the Sec of State's records depend on whether a town clerk is disposed to send in results electronically via very temperamental software.
In general, the Sec of State says, the results will not be final until they have been received by the Sec of State (deadline Friday), tallied by the Sec of State (Monday) and then certified (Tuesday). The results posted on the Sec of State web page, Sec Condos stressed, are preliminary. It is a voluntary system so it is up to each town clerk whether or not to send in results.
Still you are encouraged to consult the Sec of State's page, use the index to view the reported results in your town, and contact you Town Clerk if you suspect that all the write in votes haven't been tallied. If you suspect there is a problem, please also contact us here.
stay tuned
At 3am Wed Aug 29, the Sec of State web page has the following total:
Annette / "Write in" 207
Martha Abbott 282
Precincts reporting: 184 out of 275
This result is preliminary to say the least.
For one thing, something must have gone wrong since votes in some reporting precincts seem not to have been recorded. That is, we know that there were some votes for Annette in precincts that report zero write-ins. What gives? Are these places unable for some reason to report write-ins? We will be contacting the Sec of State's office later this morning.
Also, certain towns such as Hardwick where we would expect a relatively strong vote for Annette have not reported as of this writing.
It is interesting how many write-ins there were on the Dem ballot: 849 so far or 3% of the total Dem vote. By contrast, write-ins on the GOP gov ballot amounted to only 1.6% of the vote. It would not be surprising if a lot of those Dem write-ins were for Annette since we heard that some people were conflicted about turning in the Progressive ballot since they wanted to vote in the hot Dem AG race even though they preferred Annette to Shumlin.
Annette / "Write in" 207
Martha Abbott 282
Precincts reporting: 184 out of 275
This result is preliminary to say the least.
For one thing, something must have gone wrong since votes in some reporting precincts seem not to have been recorded. That is, we know that there were some votes for Annette in precincts that report zero write-ins. What gives? Are these places unable for some reason to report write-ins? We will be contacting the Sec of State's office later this morning.
Also, certain towns such as Hardwick where we would expect a relatively strong vote for Annette have not reported as of this writing.
It is interesting how many write-ins there were on the Dem ballot: 849 so far or 3% of the total Dem vote. By contrast, write-ins on the GOP gov ballot amounted to only 1.6% of the vote. It would not be surprising if a lot of those Dem write-ins were for Annette since we heard that some people were conflicted about turning in the Progressive ballot since they wanted to vote in the hot Dem AG race even though they preferred Annette to Shumlin.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
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