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.
Rather than being critical of Jim Condos, let’s be thankful we have a Secretary of State who is willing to admit there is a problem and willing to do something to fix it. I suspect his office was doing nothing but continuing the practice that has been in place for years. Furthermore his office was treated rudely by a group of town clerks who are more interestd in their association than service to the voters. Give Jim a chance. He and his office staff will get it right.
All I can see is that the state is asserting control over the towns.
Why are the towns obliged to report to the state? To centralize control?
Her own cause being a different (even left) perspective of Shumlin? How is it counterproductive if she moves forward with a recount? or with a campaign?
Some are clearly highly dubious of a supposed “left alternative” which runs on a platform of “vote for Shumlin”. If Smith is a write-in candidate, supported clearly by a grassroots movement (that clearly has opposition to the policy’s of the current Administration), why shouldn’t she pursue a re-count and run hard in the race? And I do not accept the “Shumlin is better than the GOP alternative and so that’s what we’ve got to do” logic as forgone conclusion, regardless of any third party’s actual chance of winning. Honestly, with Brock tracking hard right he might have stuck himself with 30-something % of the vote- arguably making this exactly the right time for a strong Prog (or other third party to the left of the Dems) to run against Shumlin.
Or put another way: Shumlin is a generally conservative Democrat, as far as fiscal/economic (and taxation) issues go (by any reasoned, globalized assessment)… if there doesn’t eventually arise a challenge from the left on this issue are we not just saying that “centrist” capitalist economics are the best that human society can do? Doesn’t the continued Dem/Rep debate need to necessarily move forward if we’re going to call ourselves “progressive” people? If we’re going to declare our faith in evolution, everything Darwin and evolution-ists tell us is that we’re a part of a progression… it’s not just going to be the same-old same-old back and forth forever….in Vermont, where increasingly the public conversation has progressed past the GOP vision it would seem a next stage has to arise sooner or later…
Abbott herself has sounded perfectly happy that the sinking ship of the Progressive Party was dignified with the write-in campaign: so what’s with the “hijack” thing? Perhaps at some level Abbott understood that Smith has rescued the PP from oblivion.
At least Smith as a kinda-sorta-maybe can clearly distinguish her politics from Shumlin’s which is more than you could say for the seat-warming-stand-in Abbott.
I would NOT, under ANY circumstances (especially those concerning the petty establishment of Vt. Dem/Progs) even CONSIDER arguments about a write-in campaign going ‘too far’ or ‘alienating’ the voters. Counterproductive??? The word you’re searching for is PRO-ACTIVE. What the fuck are we talking about here? A write-in vote is supposed to be Democracy In Action, yet Ms. Smith is being criticized for fighting to get all those votes counted? If Republicans were doing this, you little Dems would go ballistic. I agree with Wes. It’s absolutely APPALLING! how any challenge to the ‘little clubs’ of political power in Vermont are met with the same bullshit line that black folks had to deal with in the fifties and sixties–DON’T GET UPPITY!
I compliment Ms. Smith on her grassroots campaign and her near upset WRITE-IN victory. She has my vote in November, even if I have to write it in.
Un-Fucking-Believable!!! This is why we have the two biggest assholes and Nazi douche-bags as ‘Legitimate Party’ candidates for President and Vice President this year. The two biggest assholes EVER in the HISTORY of OUR DEMOCRACY to be running for these offices! When you call for suppression of grassroots activism, you are helping the Romney & Ryans, the Rich, and the Corporate Reich achieve their goal of ‘selecting’ and ‘appointing’ those who will rule us to our disadvantage and lead the nation to War, Depression, and DESTRUCTION!
PLEASE. This site should be ‘thanking‘ Ms. Smith for ‘enlivening’ an otherwise ‘same old, same old’ election year in Vermont.
THANK YOU, MS. SMITH!!!