There is no question that around GMD, our readers, and some of our front-pagers, are probably more receptive to the messages of the minor party candidates than the electorate as a whole. While the minor candidates generally have no chance of being elected, they can serve the function of airing issues that would be overlooked without them.  

Still, when these candidates resort to frankly anti-Semitic positions, they deserve to be criticized for it.  Such was the case with Cris Ericson, the National Marijuana Party candidate for Senate. According to the Burlington Free Press:

Chris Ericson of the National Marijuana Party questioned whether some members of Congress were dual citizens of Israel, given the amount of money the U.S. provides to Israel.

U.S. policy in the Middle East, and the policies of the Israeli government itself, have earned condemnation, and that kind of criticism is entirely appropriate in a Senatorial debate.

The suggestion that U.S. supporters of Israel are motivated by some kind of divided loyalty that can only be explained by dual citizenship, however, is the rankest form of bigotry.

Cris Ericson should retract this comment and apologize to Vermont’s voters for injecting antisemitism into this year’s electoral season.

Vermonters for Voting Integrity is a non-partisan group working to improve the security and integrity of our state’s election system.  Our focus over the last few years has been primarily on mitigating the proven vulnerabilities of the Diebold optical scanners that are used to count votes throughout Vermont.

Numerous independent studies have shown the system is vulerable to both unintentional computer bugs and intentional hacking and rigging.  These studies all indicate our current checks on the scanners are inadequate to catch these errors.

We have been advocating for our state to adopt the recommendations of the Brennan Report.  This is the most comprehensive study on the machines to date and it was conducted by the heads of security at Microsoft and Lawrence Livermore Labs and many other of the world’s most knowledgeable computer security experts.

The Brennan Report makes a simple recommendation: to conduct random audits of the scanners in every election.  This is a simple process by which a small number of ballots are counted by hand and the total is compared to the machine count.  By sampling a small amount, it is possible to catch most errors, whether intentional or not.

We have not experienced good cooperation with our efforts from Deb Markowitz.  While it is her job to protect Vermont voters from any type of potential problem with the election system, she has failed to recognize there is a problem. While other Secretaries of State have actually banned the machines we use or even sued Diebold, Deb has stood by and defended Diebold at every opportunity.

Vermonters for Voting Integrity was interested in the current race for Secretary of State, in hopes that the next Secretary might have a more objective and open mind regarding the Diebold scanners.  So we wrote a letter to both Jim Condos and Jason Gibbs asking them their position on this matter.  We would like to share the responses we got with you.

Jason Gibbs did not reply to our letter.  We called to ask if it was received and got their voice mail.  We left a message, asking them to please respond to the letter and to call us back if they didn’t receive it or if they had any questions.  We received no response.

Jim Condos did not initailly respond to our letter either.  So just as we did with Jason Gibbs, we called to make sure it was received.  When we called the number listed on his website, Jim himself answered the phone.  Not his publicist or volunteer; Jim answered.  He said that he did receive our letter and that he was planning on responding but he was just buried in the election and wasn’t sure when he could get to it.  He also asked me to email another copy of the letter which would make it easier to respond.

Jim indicated that he had a few minutes to discuss the issue on the phone.  He told me that it is very important for the people to have confidence in the state’s election system.  He recognizes that if people think there are problems, some people just won’t vote.  As part of his mission to get more people to vote, he wants to increase the confidence in our system.  He said he knows that regular audits are a good idea and he would conduct more audits.  He also said he would support a legislative effort to make a law requiring regular audits, instead of leaving to the discretion of the Secretary of State.  This is something we have been advocating for.  He also asked me to send him a copy of the Brennan Report and that he would closely at its recommendations.

Vermonters for Voting Integrity is pleased to share with you, that at one of the candidates for Secretary of State clearly demonstrates a desire to have a secure election system in Vermont — one that voters can have confidence in, knowing that their votes will be counted properly.  This is the foundation of our Democracy.  This candidate is Jim Condos.

The other candidate, we don’t know for sure.  But we know that he doesn’t seem to care enough about the issue to return a phone call or answer a letter asking about it.  It seems if it election integrity was important to him, he would have responded in some way.

Vermonters for Voting Integrity is a non-partisan organization and we do not endorse candidates, but we wanted to share the contrast that we exprienced between the two candidates on this issue.

I am the Director of Vermonters for Voting Integirty, and while the organization will not make an endorsement, I as a individual citizen can and would like to personally endorse Jim Condos for Secretary of State.  Wholeheartedly.

It’s great to see Jim Condos getting such broad support among labor organizations in his bid for the office of Secretary of State.  No state office is more of a hub for integrating the concerns of business in Vermont with those of a vibrant labor community on whom the health of the economy depends so much.  Jim Condos’ commitment to providing an effective and efficient Secretary’s office, dedicated to transparency and accountability, is built on a solid foundation of experience over the years in service to Vermonters.  He has pledged to demand greater accountability from public officials and to strengthen campaign finance laws.  The roster of labor endorsements for the Condos campaign is impressive:

Vermont AFL-CIO

Vermont State Employees’ Association

Vermont State Building Trades Council

Northeast Kingdom Central Labor Council

UA Local 693 Plumbers and Pipefitters

Vermont Troopers’ Association

Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 63

Professional Fire Fighters of Vermont

VT-NEA

VT League of Conservation Voters

United Profession AFT Vermont

VT Teamsters Local 597

More about these endorsements appears in the  Condos press release diary in the sidebar.

UPDATE: VPR reports the first of it's results, and it is a statistical tie, well within the 4% margin of error: Dubie 44 – Shumlin 43. Independents are reportedly leaning Dubie, but if I heard right, Dubie's negatives are higher than Shumlin's (I heard wrong – see diary above for details). Maybe all of this is not what we'd prefer to see, but it's not good news for Brian Dubie and the Republicans who aren't used to being in a fight and the predictions/analysis below is more or less relevant given the results, so I'll let it stand. Sounds like undecideds are even lower than I expected at 8%. Rebumping the diary to the top.

Whether you'll think tomorrow's VPR-commissioned poll from Mason-Dixon is good news or bad news largely depends on what sort of expectations you're proceeding under. While we don't get the numbers until sometime tomorrow, we can take a look at the buzz in the media and on the streets, the limited previous polls and combine that with what we know about Vermont voters and make some pretty good guesses.

First of all, here's the Shumlin-Dubie polling to date, going back into the primary (and via pollster):

Pollster Dates N/Pop Dubie Shumlin Other Undecided Margin

Rasmussen 9/13/10 500 LV 46 49 2 3 +3D

Rasmussen 6/17/10 500 LV 55 36 6 4 +19R

Rasmussen 3/18/10 500 LV 51 33 6 10 +18R

We witnessed a peculiarly unique phenomenon when the Rasmussen poll came out; all the analysts and pundit-types falling all over themselves reminding us how unreliable Rasmussen is (this is usually the blogs' job, given that Ras skews R). Why the sudden skepticism? Because the conventional wisdom promoted by the conventionally wise is that this race is “Dubie's to lose.” Since that last poll didn't back that wisdom up, it becomes unreliable.

But Ras was basically right – this race is close, and the Mason-Dixon poll will also show a dead heat, well within the margin of error (which is roughly 3.9%).

So here's what we're going to see in tomorrow's results: Whichever candidate comes out on top will only be leading by 1 or 2 percentage points, and that means dead heat. It almost doesn't matter whether Dubie or Shumlin ends up leading, because this thing is that tight. Undecideds will be in the 10-15% range, leaving both candidates in the low-mid 40s.

All of which will be good news for Shumlin. 42-44% is the historic statewide Republican base vote. If Dubie has no more than that at this point, he needs to be worried. To get a sense of the dynamics underway, look to the self-identifying independents. When Republicans win at the statewide level, these voters break their way, but according to reports, Dubie campaign internal polling has shown his negatives rising among this group.

Dubie needs to show a statistically meaningful lead among this group. If he and Shumlin are even tied, it suggests a bad trend for the Lieutenant Governor, and implies positive momentum for Shumlin (even though Shumlin's negatives will no doubt be higher than we'd like). If this turns out to be the case (and I expect the indys will, in fact, be a clean split), Shumlin has good prospects as long as he has a strong GOTV operation (and doesn't do anything stupid). 

Not good enough? Want to feel even better about the poll? Then check out this hot-off-the-presses report from Pew Research suggesting that the oft-discussed cell phone gap in polls like this one could be skewing results as much as 4% towards Republicans… 

Jim Condos has received endorsements for Secretary of State by the following organizations:

Vermont AFL-CIO

Vermont State Employees’ Association

Vermont State Building Trades Council

Northeast Kingdom Central Labor Council

UA Local 693 Plumbers and Pipefitters

Vermont Troopers’ Association

Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 63

Professional Fire Fighters of Vermont

VT-NEA

VT League of Conservation Voters

United Profession AFT Vermont

VT Teamsters Local 597

“I am honored to have been endorsed by these organizations,” stated Condos. “I admire the work they do and the public service they provide to Vermonters.”

In endorsing Condos, the organization representatives made the following comments about Condos:

“Jim Condos knows how Government works at the Local and State Levels, he has

the experience we need in the Secretary of State Office” – – Matt Vinci, President, Professional Firefighters of Vermont

“Senator Condos has always been a great advocate for state troopers and other law enforcement officers. He was a key sponsor and leader on issues  important to us, including working to fund law enforcement and other critical public services. Jim Condos is who we want to be Vermont’s next Secretary of State.” Mike O’Neil, President of Vt Troopers Association

“Senator Condos’ superior work regarding open and transparent government led to our decision to back his bid to be Vermont’s next Secretary of State.” – Todd Bailey, Vermont League of Conservation Voters

“Jim Condos’ desire to make sure all Vermonters have the tools to succeed whether in education, jobs, or business puts him on the right track to be the next Secretary of State.  Jim brings a level of excellence with him where ever he goes. Jim has work endlessly to improve the quality of life in Vermont by supporting minimum wage increases, vocational rehabilitation payments ordering insurance companies to start making wage and medical payments to an injured employee  pending a hearing, and increasing COLA adjustments to workers compensation benefits.  This a short list highlighting a career long commitment to working Vermonters, families and communities.” – Dennis LaBounty, Vermont AFL-CIO

For a complete list of individual and organization endorsements, please visit http://www.jimcondos.com/endor…

# # #

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

Early in yesterday’s Free Press debate, Brian Dubie once again put on his “union guy” hat, choosing this time, however just to say “I belong to a labor union.” Given that it looks like Dubie is not going to drop his “union guy” claim any time soon, I have to wonder why he introduced a proposal during the October 7 VPT debate to gut state employees’ retirement by switching his VSEA brothers and sisters from a defined benefit pension plan to a defined contribution pension plan (read: if your personal investment skills suck, your retirement probably will as well).

This is an odd proposal from Mr. Union Guy because his own union, the Allied Pilots Association (APA), has been fighting a tough battle for years now to protect the defined benefit plan APA pilots negotiated with American Airlines. In fact, pilots belonging to Mr. Dubie’s union are some of the last in the airline industry who still enjoy a defined benefit plan, called simply “Plan A.”

On the blog “Airline Pilot Central,” I found the following entry posted by an American pilot:

“Since the advent of deregulation thirty years ago almost every legacy carrier has been liquidated through bankruptcy or had their defined benefit retirement plans liquidated and the liabilities of those plans passed on to the [federal] PBGC. The one lone exception to this has been American Airlines.”

“The second problem with the DC plans is that because of limits on how much the government will allow you to contribute to your B plan. In most cases it is not enough to fund an adequate retirement.”

So, Mr. Union Guy sits idly by while his boss cuts Vermont state employee jobs (even though APA pilots are vociferously fighting back against American Airlines’ job cuts) and he parts ways with his APA brothers and sisters on the issue of American pilots switching to a defined contribution plan.

Guessing Mr. Union Guy isn’t a big hit at APA functions, unless he’s putting on a different face with that crowd.

Note: Vermonters are going to hear a lot from a certain Chicken Little crowd in the next few months about how state employees need to make changes to their pension system or the sky will indeed fall. Please remember that state employees sat with the Douglas Administration, Legislature and the Treasurer in 2007 and agreed to changes that Treasurer Spaulding said at the time would make the employees’ pension fund “sustainable.” In fact, in papers across the state, Vermont officials were praising state employees for their cooperation and compromise. Now, because of recent Wall Street greed and predatory bankers, the pension changes state employees agreed to in 2007 are a convenient distant memory for some.  State employees have not forgotten.

It was great to hear Peter Shumlin taking the Entergy issue right to Brian Dubie yesterday. As reported on VPR, Shumlin launched a powerful attack on Dubie's pro-Entergy partisanship:

 "My experience with both you and the governor is that you are an apologist for Entergy Louisiana stockholders and Entergy Louisiana and you won't stand up for Vermonters."

 Dubie weakly claimed that he doesn't work for Entergy, although it would be hard for Dubie or Douglas to prove that.  Meanwhile, Yankee isn't the only Entergy plant pumping tritium into the water. Down in Massachusetts, the PatriotLedger reports that Entergy's Pilgrim plant is doing the same thing:  

After dropping steadily for much of the summer, levels of a radioactive isotope at one of the Pilgrim nuclear plant’s monitoring wells have skyrocketed above federal drinking water standards again.

 And the response of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?  

Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said his agency is satisfied that Entergy is taking the right steps to solve the mystery at Pilgrim.   . . .  “They’re following the same protocol that’s been used – and used effectively – at other plants,” Sheehan said of Entergy.

Given that we’re now seeing tritium in the aquifer around Vermont Yankee, is it really a good idea for Sheehan to stick with that line?

And, if you’re in or around Plymouth, Mass., how long before you start seeing Entergy’s “I am Pilgrim” commercials?

(Promoting up top.  The forum begins at 6:30 and I will start live blogging around that time. – promoted by JulieWaters)

I will be live blogging tonight’s candidate forum in Brattleboro, VT, so I will update this piece then, but I want to list the candidates and provide details on the event first.  The confirmed candidate list (10 candidates) is:

Jeanette White

Hillary Cooke

Richard Davis

Mollie Burke

Michael Obuchowski

Carolyn Partridge

David Deen

Mike Mrowicki

Richard Marek

John Moran

The forum will take place in the multipurpose room of Brattleboro Union High School at 6:30 pm.

The above represents a mix of incumbents and new candidates, and a mix of parties as well.  I’m looking forward to seeing these candidates be challenged on issues crucial to Vermont’s future.

Last night, I attended the Rutland forum on health care, child care, and access to public service that I’ve been discussing.  This was the Rutland forum, #6 out of fifteen.

It’s interesting to do these forums outside of your own district, because you see the issues presented in ways that are fairly different from how you’re used to seeing them.  I didn’t live blog last night because I’m live blogging Brattleboro tonight (6:30 pm, Brattleboro Middle School), and didn’t want to do two nights of that in a row.  I also know the Brattleboro candidates fairly well and feel more qualified to live blog that session.

But I’m extremely glad I went to the Rutland forum for one specific comment, more than any other.  

Peg Flory, a Rutland Republican, talking about Challenges for Change, said “We were cowards.”  She explained how they were too scared to make the specific cuts they needed to cut so instead they turned them into “objectives” and pushed them onto the state agencies and just said that they had to find ways to save money in a way which allowed the legislature to pretend to make hard decisions while evading actual responsibility for those decisions.  This wasn’t someone posturing.  Her body language, her tone?  This was anger.  

I don’t agree with Flory on a lot.  She voted against same sex marriage and she voted against adding protections on the basis of gender identity (real or perceived) to employment non-discrimination, both of which I find to be extremely unfortunate choices on her part.  She was one of 4 Senators to vote to extend Vermont Yankee’s license, which suggests to me either incompetence or mendacity.

But, even with all that, I came out of last night with a lot of respect for her willingness to own the problems inherent in Challenges for Change and, most likely, burn herself within her own committees.  I’d still never vote for the woman, but I did not expect to come out of that evening respecting her more than any other candidate on the stage.