Ryan Doyle has now won election to the St. Albans City Council as Ward 5 Alderman, twice.

This time, the margin was so wide that it would seem Joe Luneau has no hope of again overturning the results.  

In fact, it was Mr. Doyle who picked-up considerably more support since the first election.  Despite his best efforts at beating the bushes far and wide for absentee voters…some very much absent…Mr. Luneau garned roughly the same number of votes as he did in the first election.

The incumbent wasn’t about to go down without a fight.  Perhaps sensing that sentiments in Ward 5 were running against him, late yesterday afternoon in the midst of voting, Mr. Luneau’s backers sought a court order in Franklin County Superior Court to allow a group of thirteen defective absentee ballots to be “replaced” with new ballots.

That’s right; not content with having cast an ethical shadow over the whole question of absentee voter rights by admitting to soliciting votes from people no longer living in Ward 5, Mr. Luneau now sought to further stretch the law in order to have defective absentee ballots replaced with new ones.

This is the same Joe Luneau who insisted repeatedly that a new election was necessary in order to reaffirm voter confidence in the integrity of the system.  

Due to the lateness of the request, Judge Robert Mello issued an order allowing for new ballots to be issued to the absentee voters, but specified that, upon completion, these should not be co-mingled with the rest of the ballots, but held until, after due consideration, he could render a decision on the matter.

At this point we can only speculate on why those ballots were deemed “defective,” but it may be significant that the judge cites Title 17, article 2547 in the first line of the order:

§ 2547. Defective ballots

If upon examination by the election officials it shall appear that the early or absentee voter is not legally qualified to vote, or has voted in person, or that the affidavit on any envelope is insufficient, the certificate is not signed, or the voted ballot is not in the voted ballot envelope, or, in the case of a primary vote, the early or absentee voter has failed to return the unvoted portions of the primary ballots, such envelope shall be marked “defective,” and the ballots inside shall not be counted and shall be returned in the unopened envelope to the town clerk in the manner prescribed by section 2590 of this title. The provisions of this section shall be indicated prominently in the early or absentee voter material prepared by the secretary of state. (Added 1977, No. 269 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; amended 1985, No. 196 (Adj. Sess.), § 6; 2001, No. 6, § 11, eff. April 10, 2001

Come what may with those thirteen ballots,  Mr. Doyle’s majority is so overwhelming that it would make no difference to the outcome.

In the wake of all this melodrama, the ethical and legal issues raised in the St. Albans vote have been so significant that Secretary of State Jim Condos has offered to Mayor Liz Gamache, who chairs the Board of Civil Authority, that he will send a team of representatives from his office to walk the BCA through the complexities that have arisen, in order to avoid a future repeat.

Not surprisingly, he reports that his phone was ringing off the hook yesterday as Luneau supporters sought, unsuccessfully, to persuade him that new absentee ballots should be recognized in replacement of the ones deemed “spoiled.”  

This morning, the sun is shining, the birds are singing; and the voters of Ward 5 have delivered a message, loudly and clearly, about the importance of ethics, beyond mere legality, in winning their support.