Well, the state canvassers’ committee met again today, and heard about a change in the final tally for the Progressive Party’s gubernatorial nomination. The revised total was 371 for Progressive Party chair Martha Abbott, and 370 for write-in “candidate” Annette Smith.

Smith picked up 16 votes from the original count, which had been certified by the canvassers on Tuesday. So what caused the discrepancy?

Faulty totals from two towns, Walden and Hardwick. Walden apparently underreported Smith’s total by 7, which was noticed by Smith supporters and brought to election officials’ attention after the canvassers’ Tuesday meeting. As for Hardwick, its results were initially faxed in to the Secretary of State’s office, and due to a combination of poor handwriting and poor fax quality, what should have been a “9” for Smith was tallied as a “0”. When Hardwick’s hard copy arrived in the mail, the discrepancy was discovered.

Smith has filed a formal request for a recount, as is her right since the final margin was within 2%.

At the canvassers’ meeting Director of Elections Kathy Scheele noted that “only a candidate, a losing candidate within a 2% margin, may…request a recount.” This was apparently aimed at Smith, who has not yet committed to actually becoming a candidate if she wins the recount. She has described herself as a sort of provisional candidate solely for the purpose of seeking a recount.

The big drama today was provided by VTGOP Chair “Angry Jack” Lindley, who delivered a harsh attack on the process and all but accused Secretary of State Jim Condos of incompetence and/or grossly unethical conduct.  

 Lindley sat directly across a conference table from Condos, but never made eye contact as he delivered a rather rambling statement in which he sought to remove the Republicans’ previous validation of the primary result. (The aggressive content and subdued delivery were noticeably at odds; Lindley has spent most of his political career behind the scenes, and I think he’s not used to actually facing the person he’s targeting.)

“The process… may suggest that there is collusion between the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party,” he said. “It’s hard to believe that one vote would be the deciding factor. And given that the other candidate [Abbott] has already withdrawn, we, we stand, ah, on the side of good party activity and believe the Progressive Party deserves to have this position filed for the fall campaign.”

Which is beside the point. Whether or not there’s a name in the Progressive slot has nothing to do with the conduct of the primary. But his implication was clear: the Democrats would prefer not to have a Progressive on the ballot, and pulled some sort of dirty trick to keep Smith one vote shy of victory. He has no evidence, naturally.

(I’ve appended the full text of his remarks below. It’s a wonderful example of inarticulate rhetoric.)

After the meeting, he told reporters that the situation “doesn’t pass the smell test.” When asked if he was implying collusion between Condos and party leaders, he said “It’s now  beginning to be a consistent pattern, whether it be the checklists and the validity of checklists in the state of Vermont, or in fact the counting of primary votes, and I’m very disturbed by it.”

Not sure what he means by “the validity of checklists.” I suspect he’s trying to tie this primary to the broader Republican theme of alleged vote fraud. For his part, Condos dismissed Lindley’s complaints as “strictly politics.”

Lindley has also reportedly thrown a monkey wrench into the recount process. By law, there has to be a five-day waiting period before a recount can begin. But if all parties agree, that period can be waived. (A recount of the Progressive ballots should only take a day or two.) But Lindley told VTDigger that the VTGOP would not agree to a waiver.

Which puts Vermont in danger of missing federal deadlines. Here’s how the situation was described by Condos and Scheele: The state has to deliver ballots to all of Vermont’s town clerks by September 21. If Lindley continues his obstructionism, the recount cannot begin until next Friday the 14th. Even if it were completed quickly, that would leave the Secretary of State only a few days to prepare the ballots, proofread them, send them to the printers, get the proofs back for final proofreading, get them printed, and ship them to all of Vermont’s town clerks by the 21st.

Lindley’s refusal to waive has nothing whatsoever to do with his accusations regarding the primary. He’s just throwing a tantrum. If somebody changes his nappy, maybe he’ll come to his senses and allow the recount to proceed as quickly as possible.

When all is said and done, this whole thing is interesting but essentially meaningless. It won’t have any significant effect on the course of the campaign. If Abbott’s victory is upheld, she’ll stay out of the race. If Smith turns out to be the winner, she’ll have to decide whether to fully commit herself to a candidacy. If she does, she’ll get the Progressives’ seat at the gubernatorial debates.

(Well, whichever debates remain. The first one is Wednesday the 12th on VPR. If Lindley doesn’t agree to a waiver, Smith won’t be able to take part in that one. Considering Lindley’s stated concern for having a Progressive in the race, shouldn’t he remove that roadblock to her participation?)

She does have something to lose in all of this, however. If she doesn’t come across as a credible candidate on a broad array of issues, she and her movement will lose some credibility with the public. And if her vote total is small — which seems likely, considering that her core supporters number a few hundred and the Progressive vote will be split between her and Shumlin — it’ll make the anti-wind movement seem insignificant.

And now, for your reading pleasure, we present the unexpurgated version of Jack Lindley’s protest to the committee of canvassers:

On behalf of the Republican Party, I realize there’s no signature required today, but we would withhold our signature on a process that we don’t believe is valid, has integrity, and stands the test of good — ah, good work. So at this particular point in time, my substitute had signed on another day, but at this point in time, we would be withholding our signature on the canvass committee.

We’re concerned that the process is full of, you know, not good work, and may suggest that there is collusion between the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party, and we find that to not be in good order, and frankly we’re very disappointed in the outcome and encourage the Progressive candidate to file for a recount.

It’s hard to believe that one vote would be the deciding factor. And given that the other candidate has already withdrawn, we, we stand, ah, on the side of good party activity and believe the Progressive Party deserves to have this position filled for the fall campaign. Anything less than that, in our judgment, serves no good for the voice of all Vermonters, and I must say that I find it very disappointing that we can’t get the numbers right the first time.

So if there is a process for us to withdraw the original signature, we wish to do that. If not, I’m afraid that we’re bound by signing on a canvass that was originally not valid.

Lindley was then informed that there was no process for withdrawing a signature because the revised count did not change the outcome of the election.

p.s. You may be wondering, what if the recount produces a tie between Abbott and Smith? In that case, the Progressive Party would choose one of the two as its candidate. In other words, tie goes to Abbott.

UPDATE: The Smith recall petition was filed in the Washington Superior Court Thursday afternoon, and it is anticipated that the recall will be held next week.

I have been asked by the County Clerk for Democratic volunteers for the recount. Anyone who wants to volunteer for the recount should contact their local Democratic (or Progressive, or Republican) County Chair.

Jack McCullough

The state Board of Canvassers has met (again) and certified (again) the results of the Progressive Party’s gubernatorial primary.

Take Two: Martha Abbott 371, Annette Smith 370. The revised tally gives Smith 16 additional votes, thanks to errors in transmitting the results from two towns — Hardwick and Walden.

Smith left the Secretary of State’s HQ as soon as the canvassers concluded their very brief meeting; she wanted to get to the courthouse before it closed, to formally seek a recount.

Meanwhile, VTGOP Chair Jack Lindley represented his party at the meeting and delivered a harsh attack against the whole process. He raised the spectre of a Democratic/Progressive backroom plot to keep Smith off the ballot. His conspiracy theory: Abbott has already said she would withdraw and endorse Governor Shumlin; if Smith is the winner, she might stay on the ballot (she still hasn’t committed to actually becoming a candidate) and presumably siphon some votes away from the Guv. Hence, the Dems have an interest in an Abbott victory.

More details on this later.  

That was the first thought that crossed my mind when I saw this photo:

Mitt’s 6’2″ (viz. Teh Google), so Randy’s, what, 5’4″?

The photo was taken yesterday during Mitt’s folksy little stopover at LaValley Building Supply in West Lebanon, NH (great store, BTW), just a hop and a skip from Romney’s debate-prep HQ, the $3.9 million vacation home of former Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey near Woodstock, VT.

So Randy got to spend “ten or fifteen minutes” with the Mittster — after first getting the full Secret Service patdown and then standing around LaValley’s waiting for Mitt to finish a series of satellite interviews with national TV outlets.

For that, and many other juicy details about what it’s like to be adjacent to a Mitt Romney “availabillity” (Mitt had no time whatsoever for the local press, who were shooed forcefully out of the store by Romney staffers), I strongly recommend Paul Heintz’ account on the Seven Days website. Fun stuff.  

Well, this should be interesting.

Today at 4:00, the state Board of Canvassers will take a second crack at certifying the results in the Progressive Party’s gubernatorial primary. On Tuesday, the Board approved a final tally of 371 for Martha Abbott and 354 write-ins for anti-wind activist Annette Smith. That’s usually the last word in election results.

Not this time. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Jim Condos re-opened the count due to “human errors” and called a special Board meeting for 4:00 today.

And he told the Vermont Press Bureau that Smith’s revised total will be “at least 370.”

Oh boy.

After the jump: Do I have second thoughts?

So after the initial certification, I wrote a diary critical of Smith and Co. for wanting to pursue the issue further.

Was I wrong about that? Yes.

I relied on the Board of Canvassers’ certification as the final word. That’s a pretty safe bet under normal circumstances, but this ain’t normal.

Has an election ever been re-opened after it’s been certified? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is a first in Vermont political history.

I still believe that the write-in campaign itself was a questionable move: taking advantage of a low-turnout primary to hijack an established party’s nomination. If Smith does, indeed, pull this out, I hope she takes some responsibility for representing the Party as well as her own cause.  

Oh, great. A day after the Board of Canvassers certified the “final” results, and after Secretary of State Jim Condos dismissed any concerns about the final results in the Progressive Party’s gubernatorial primary, he’s now admitted that “human errors were made” in the count.

It now appears that the margin separating Martha Abbott and write-in kinda-sorta-maybe candidate Annette Smith is just a bit closer. It’s unclear exactly how much closer, but Condos says the tally is now within the margin necessary to qualify for a recount.

The Board will meet tomorrow to certify the revised count. After that, Smith can ask for a recount if she wants.

This doesn’t much change my views on the subject. Smith will now be within her rights to call for a recount, and it’ll be fine by me if she does so. But it would be counerproductive to her own cause if she pursues this much further.

And I still think that the whole write-in campaign was a wrongheaded attempt to hijack an established party’s nomination.

I will add one more thing: I hope that, from now on, Jim Condos is a bit more careful about making categorical statements about election results.  

(Thursday, Sept. 13)

My fellow Americans,

I just spent some time

In Vermont

You know, where all

the Gay people live

I walked the roads

And talked to folks

And that’s why I’m

Addressing you tonight

All that stuff

In our Platform

Is a crock of shit

I went to a Gay Marriage

We’ve got to tax the rich

Starting with me

The farmers gave me

Some herbs

And abortion?

Well, that’s up to

The lady

And war is stupid

And so is Limbaugh

We don’t need

Any F-35s

Now I want you to know

That I apologize

To gays and dogs

And women

I’m going to give

All my money

To free Mumia and Peltier

And fight to make Wall Street

Pay back the Bail-Out

Ann and I are going

To move to Vermont

And grow solar organic herbs

And that Buknatski guy

Who taught me to write like this

I’m going to do everything

That he tells me to do

So I’m sorry  I’m sorry

I’m soooo sorry

I was a rich asshole

Fraternity boy

But after my trip to Vermont

I have figured it out

And this is what all America

Should be about

(Hey, Peter, that rhymed–I’m getting good at this.)

And you can vote for me

If you want to

But I really don’t care

About that

I just want love

And justice and peace

And a trailer

In the Northeast Kingdom

With five cats and two dogs

And maybe a goat

And a pick-up

Up on cinder blocks

So Occupy Occupy Occupy

And gather fiddleheads

When they’re in season

And when poor people

And workers

Say they need benefits

And help

Don’t forget

There’s a very good reason

(Hey, I did it again.  Cool.)

Good night

Peter Buknatski

(We Wish)

Montpelier, Vt.

So the votes have been counted, the results certified, and yet Vermont’s Most Reluctant Candidate, Annette Smith, continues her battle for the office she isn’t sure she’s running for.

To recap: supporters of Smith’s fight against wind power threw together a last-minute write-in campaign to grab the Progressive Party’s nomination for Governor. And they nearly pulled it off; in a low-turnout primary with all the attention focused on the Dems’ race for AG, less than a thousand voters took Progressive ballots. The official tally was 371 for the Party’s choice, Martha Abbott, and 354 write-ins for Smith. A recount can only be conducted when the margin of victory is less than 2%. In this case, the margin was two votes above the threshold. So it’s all over, right?

Well, no. Although Smith has still, as far as I can tell, not decided whether she actually wants to be a candidate, she plans to continue the fight against, oh, I don’t know, the Jim Condos/Dem/Prog/Repub/Every Town Clerk In The State conspiracy that’s obviously out to keep her from winning a spot on the ballot and in the gubernatorial debates. She’s even talking about taking the whole thing to court — even as the state faces a federally-mandated September 21 deadline to finalize the ballot.

Their arguments are wafer-thin, irrelevant, and sometimes contradictory. It’s the “throw everything against the wall and hope something sticks” style of reasoning. Some voters wrote in Smith’s name but didn’t color in the adjacent oval. Some voters wrote in her name in the wrong party ballot or for the wrong office. More than 200 voters took a Progressive ballot but didn’t cast a vote for Governor. Some Smith backers somehow believe that their ballots weren’t counted.

Most of which is irrelevant to the outcome. And all of which comes across as more than a bit obsessive. Free advice to Annette Smith and her supporters: concede gracefully and take credit for almost pulling it off. Turn your attention back to the cause you so firmly believe in. If you keep hammering away at this, you’ll risk losing whatever credibility you have in the public sphere because you will look like crazy people.

Now, a few thoughts on the write-in campaign itself.  

Martha Abbott must be a very patient person. Because if I were the head of the Progressive Party, I would have been royally pissed off at a bunch of outsiders trying to hijack my party.

I’m not a Progressive (or a Democrat), but I have lots of respect for the Progs who have fought so long and so hard at the toughest task in American politics: building and maintaining a viable third party. And then a handful of single-issue activists swoop in and try to name one of their own as the Progs’ statewide standard-bearer.

Smith’s backers have argued that since Abbott intended to withdraw if she won the nomination, they wanted to ensure that there was a third voice in the campaign.

Okay. Let’s say I own a car but I’m not using it. Does that give you the right to take it out for a spin?

No, it doesn’t.

The Progressives built up their party through a lot of diligent hard work. They have earned the right to do what they feel is best with their party. A bunch of interlopers do not have the right to usurp the party label, even if it would otherwise go unused.

This is not the best of times for the Progs. The last thing they needed was to have a non-Prog single-issue activist become their public face. It could have done considerable damage to their remaining credibility. And that would have been a shame.  

Doug Hoffer, has been taking a look at  the way current Auditor, Republican Tom Salmon, has been using taxpayer dollars.  You might say that he has been auditing the Auditor.

What has he discovered, you ask?

Democratic / Progressive candidate for State Auditor Doug Hoffer said current State Auditor Tom Salmon’s $5,000 payment to his former political campaign coordinator for managing the Auditor’s online weight loss program is “a big, fat, waste of taxpayer dollars.”

It seems that Mr. Salmon, in one of his not infrequent lapses of judgement, saw fit to take money from the State’s General Fund to hire John Kleinhans (who is said “former campaign coordinator”) to provide an online coaching program entitled “Accountable to You, Accountable to Me,”  which was introduced in December of 2011.

The title is ironic, as this hire only serves to illustrate, once again, that Mr. Salmon thinks he need be accountable to no one.

Apparently it was the Auditor’s rationale that the program, which could be accessed online, would help Vermonters to set personal improvement goals, like weight-loss, smoking cessation or saving money.  

Once again Mr. Salmon seems to have been bored with his own elected position and was looking to move into a different arena of influence; perhaps the Department of Health and Human Services(?)

Accepting the assignment, Kleinhans noted, “I am really excited. This is a morale boosting vehicle where Vermonters can stand up and make themselves better and their communities better after a difficult year.  If we could find 1,000 Vermonters to save 2012 dollars for others, that is over 2 million dollars…It blows my mind!”

The hyperbole was somewhat overspent (as were taxpayer dollars) in this case.  Doug Hoffer discovered that, as of this week, the Facebook page created for the program boasts only 120 “Likes.”  As Hoffer notes, that is an average cost of $41.66 per “like.”

This is what happens to the Auditor’s office when a political hack comes to regard it only as his personal stepping stone.

Now, we on GMD have had a lot of fun with Tom Salmon’s clueless tenure in the Auditor’s office.  As he prepares to exit the office he has once again given us reason to smack our heads in comic disbelief.

Except that it isn’t very funny when so many in the State have had to make do with so much less over the past couple of years as it became necessary to adjust to lean times.  And it is a reminder that voters must think carefully what sort of person they want to occupy the Auditor’s office.

Do we want another displaced pol just marking time in the office until the stars align for his next political ascension; or do we want Doug Hoffer who has a genuine vocation for the office, and has been actively engaged throughout the Salmon years in providing the kind of focussed analysis that has been lacking from the incumbent.

I say this not because I have any particular dislike for Vince Illuzzi.  I do not.  I just don’t think he is the right man for this job; or that he has the necessary commitment to apolitical grunt work that is so necessary for the State’s longterm economic health.

I fear that his long legislative history may tempt him away from the impartial and dedicated focus essential to the Auditor’s work; and that he may succumb to the impulse to try and legislate from the Auditor’s office.

Let’s finally get it right this time.  We’ve had enough of distracted dilettantes.  Let’s put Hoffer in the Auditor’s chair in 2012.

 

 This coming week candidate for Auditor Doug Hoffer will be at VTNEA, AFL-CIO events and campaign with Bernie Sanders.Which is another in a series of busy weeks on the road campaigning for Hoffer as JV’s diary below shows.

So then, here is Republican candidate for Auditor Vince Illuzzi pictured on his Facebook page with Steve Forbes and at a Romney event with John Sununu. What message is self proclaimed independent Vermont Republican Illuzzi dog whistling when he is pictured with partisan Republican Party guys like Forbes and Sununu?  

More on GOP after the jump

Steve Forbes wrote this not long ago about President Obama 

I’m going to be blunt here. We have a president, unlike any other, who is truly a hardcore socialist who truly believes in massive government domination.

 And shouldn’t Illuzzi put some distance between himself and Romney surrogate former NH Governor John Sununu who lately has all four of his partisan wheels off the road. During the Republican Convention Sununu managed to make headlines when he angrily yelled at CNN’s Soledad O’Brien  suggesting she

“put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead when you do this,”

if she were to continue to question him about Medicare.

About a day later Sununu again jumped the curb again during an interview with On the Media’s Brook Gladstone. Sununu became agitated while defending his claim that fact checking will throw a campaign off message, growled about biased fact checking. With that he abruptly ended the interview and hung up. All this comes months after saying this about Obama:

“I wish this president would learn how to be an American.”

After the public outcry over that one Sununu offered a weak apology.

Senator Illuzzi seems to be constantly publically flirting with the idea of running as an Independent. So numerous have his own stories been of unnamed colleagues begging him to run as Democrat or Independent I would assume he needs to spend large parts of every day simply fending off such pleas.

Independent or Republican in the mold of Republicans Ernest Gibson, Franklin Billings, George Aiken and Jim Jeffords it says on Illuzzi’s webpage.Well, Gibson, Billings and Aiken are long gone and it’s over a decade since Jim Jeffords bolted the Republican Party that had grown too crazy for a real independent Vermonter. But through it all Illuzzi remains a Republican Party man.    

Well, it’s now official: Bill Sorrell is the Democratic nominee for Attorney General. And Martha Abbott is — barely — the Progessive candidate for Governor.

Last first. Per the Secretary of State’s office, Abbott got 371 votes and Annette Smith got 354 write-ins. (There were a total of 382 write-in votes, but the remainder were for other miscellaneous candidates.)

There has been talk from Smith and her backers possibly seeking a recount, even as Smith herself has waffled on whether she’s actually a candidate. We’ll wait to hear from them, possibly in the Comments below.

Sorrell’s final margin of victory was actually a bit wider than the unofficial count. He took 21,124 votes to TJ Donovan’s 20,410.