AREA TOWNS – Vermont’s town clerks have had more work ahead of this year’s election today than in previous years as they’ve been processing a lot of mail-in ballots. The state has mailed ballots to every registered voter for only the second Presidential election. 42.31% of them had been received and recorded by town clerks as of midday yesterday, nearly doubling the 22.14% on October 21.
With so many ballots mailed in, it’s likely more than half of all voters had already cast their ballot before in-person voting began today.
Hardwick Town Clerk Tonia Chase said a total of 839 mail-in ballots had been received before the polls opened Tuesday, raising the percentage there to 38.5%. Despite that high number of mail-in ballots, the polls had a steady stream of voters at 9 a.m.
Kim Greaves, Greensboro’s town clerk reported 337 mail-in ballots on hand when the polls opened there at 10 a.m., raising the percentage to 52.4%. Several voters at a time were casting ballots through the first hour polls were open in Greensboro.
Woodbury Town Clerk Robin Durkee said last minute mail-in ballots raised the total there to 366, yielding the same 52.4% of early returns as in Greensboro.
Pollworker Amy Kolb Noyes, a Wolcott justice of the peace and chair of the Board of Civil Authority, who was handing out ballots to voters, reported there was a line out the door from 7:30 to after 8 a.m., which hasn’t happened since 2020.
Town clerks had to wait to open and record mailed-in ballots until after the polls opened this morning. A slow turnout at the polls will give election officials time to process ballots mailed in before election day.
“Vermont leads the nation in how we balance access with solid security procedures. State laws carefully balance security and transparency with the right to vote, said Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas. “There is intentional redundancy built into the procedures to ensure fairness and accuracy.”
Secretary Copeland Hanzas said unofficial results are reported to her office by city and town clerks after polls close at 7 p.m., the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 5, and are posted on the Secretary of State’s website, //electionresults.vermont.gov/.
Statewide election results will be unofficial until the Statewide Canvassing Committee meets at the Vermont State House to certify the results on Tuesday, Nov. 12.
“Vermont is well-known for its free, fair, transparent and accessible elections,” said Secretary Copeland Hanzas. “My office will be working closely with Vermont’s city and town clerks to post the unofficial results of the General Election on the night of November 5, so voters, the media, and all interested parties have access to those results. We then encourage public and media engagement in our post-election day events at the statehouse.”
photo by Paul Fixx
Following the certification of results on November 12, the Secretary of State’s Office will hold a public, live-streamed general election audit at the statehouse on Tuesday, Dec. 3. A number of Vermont cities and towns (including some hand-count towns) will be selected, and their reported results will be matched to the paper ballots retained by the clerk, to make sure there are no discrepancies.
Two weeks after that, Vermont’s Presidential Electors will gather at the statehouse to cast their electoral college votes on Tuesday, Dec. 17.
In 2021, the legislature made universal mail-in ballots a permanent part of voting in Vermont. This election marks only the second presidential election in which most registered voters in Vermont were automatically mailed a ballot, though some states have been doing it for many years.
Roughly five percent of mailed ballots were returned as undeliverable, according to the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office and area Town Clerks.
“Our office has long advocated for eliminating unnecessary barriers to voting because we have seen over the decades that the number of eligible voters who have been denied the right to cast a ballot vastly exceeds attempts of voter fraud,” said Secretary Copeland Hanzas..
Eight of the 11 towns in this area had reported receiving above the average number of mailed ballots, with Calais at 54%, the only town above 50% in this area and well above next in line Craftsbury at 49%. Hardwick and Stannard were well below the state average, each reporting just 32%, while Woodbury was right at the 42% state average.
Monday’s data showed Stannard’s mail-in returns more than doubled in two weeks, increasing from the 14% recorded on October 21 to 32% yesterday.
Local mail-in returns showed the following November 4:
54% of Calais mail-in ballots had been returned. (727 of 1342 mailed)
49% of Craftsbury mail-in ballots have been returned. (457 of 931 mailed)
48% of Walden mail-in ballots have been returned. (341 of 699 mailed)
47% of Cabot mail-in ballots have been returned. (512 of 1092 mailed)
46% of Greensboro mail-in ballots have been returned. (295 of 643 mailed)
45% of Plainfield mail-in ballots have been returned. (476 of 1051 mailed)
45% of Marshfield mail-in ballots have been returned. (515 of 1121 mailed)
43% of Wolcott mail-in ballots have been returned. (513 of 1202 mailed)
42% of Woodbury mail-in ballots have been returned. (297 of 698 mailed)
32% of Hardwick mail-in ballots have been returned. (705 of 2176 mailed)
32% of Stannard mail-in ballots have been returned. (52 of 162 mailed)
Link to the map directly at ccn–election–map-2024.netlify.app/ where hovering over a town displays the data.
Data in this report has been provided by Ben Cooley, data visualization engineer with the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News who has been gathering figures from the Office of the Vermont Secretary of State to track the number and percent of registered voters in each town whose ballots have been received and tallied.
A Hardwick Gazette Election Dashboard is available now at tinyurl.com/GazetteVotes2024 with data compiled by the Associated Press.
Acey Sheehan and Gwen Matthews report for the Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
Gwen Matthews
