The Rapp family, Galen, 4, Madeline, 10, and Heron, 7, help mother Kathy check out the sample ballots at Readsboro School before she entered the voting booth.
But, while Vermont shed its reputation as a Republican stronghold long ago, until recently the Deerfield Valley was still a safe bet for Republican candidates. Although the valley paradigm has been shifting over the last couple of elections, this year Deerfield Valley results reflected statewide voting trends.
With the exception of Searsburg, where McCain won 32 to 26, Obama swept valley towns by substantial margins. Valley voters also backed Democrats including incumbent Representative Peter Welch, secretary of state Deb Markowitz, treasurer Jeb Spaulding, and attorney general William Sorrell. But the Republicans weren’t shut out in valley polling; Governor Jim Douglas took valley towns over challengers Gaye Symington and Anthony Pollina. The only race in which valley voters bucked statewide trends was for lieutenant governor – valley towns supported Brattleboro Democrat Thomas Costello over the winner, incumbent Brian Dubie, a Republican.
In local races, valley towns returned incumbent state representatives and senators, including John Moran in a hotly contested battle with former Representative Phil Bartlett.
Wilmington elected 10 justices of the peace: Frank Spencer with 663 votes, Thomas Fitzgerald (641), Marcia Dorey (629), Susan Rusten (545), Tom Manton (520), Frances Kirchner (497), Fred Houston (471), Bill Hamilton (430), Elizabeth McEwen (398), and Gil Oxley (397).
Wilmington also chose Bruce Mullen to serve on the selectboard, with 535 votes. Selectboard candidate Jim Burke took 463 votes.
Town clerk Susan Haughwout says voting was brisk in Wilmington, with a turnout of 1,184 voters, incuding 266 absentee/early voters, or 76% of the town’s voter checklist of 1,537. Like several valley towns, Haughwout says there were even lines at the polls at times, although no voters waited more than a few minutes. “When we opened at 7 am, there were already 30 people in the lobby waiting to vote,” she says.
Wilmington and Whitingham were the only two towns in the valley to use a voting machine to tabulate votes. Both Haughwout and Whitingham Town Clerk Almira Aekus say the machine count went off without a hitch, and saved hours of hand counting. Both report that they were home in record time Tuesday evening.
In Whitingham the polls opened at 10 am, and Aekus says she had to turn away some eager voters who showed up before the official time. In all, 686 voters turned out in Whitingham, or 76% of the town’s registered voters. In the last presidential election, the town’s turnout was 72%.
Searsburg and Stamford voters may have delivered the valley’s highest turnout both with 84% – or 63 of Searsburg’s 75 voters, and 510 of Stamford’s 606 voters. Wardsboro was a close second, where town clerk Jackie Bedard says more than 80%, 427 of the town’s 524 voters, turned out.
Halifax topped 78% voter turnout, with 426 of their 546 voters coming out to cast ballots, but Dover was only slightly lower, with about 77%, or 792 of the town’s 1,025 voters. According to Dover Town Clerk Andy McLean, the real number is closer to 90%, “when you figure people that have moved out of town but haven’t removed their names from the checklist yet.”
Dover still counts their ballots by hand, but McLean says ballot counters were pleasantly surprised by the delivery of pizza, donated by Pizzeria La Toscanella. “They just showed up – said they wanted to do their part,” McLean says. “It was a really cool surprise.”
In Dover, five candidates were running for seven open justice of the peace positions: Marleen Glockner (492), Ilena Brown (478), William Buswell (422), Lawrence Feldstein (401), and Ray Warren (399) will be justices, and Cyndee Frere, who received 67 write-in votes, will also serve as justice of the peace.
Readsboro voters turned down a special ballot measure asking voters to amend the town charter to require users of town utilities such as water and sewer to pay for infrastructure construction, repair, or expansion. Voters rejected the petitioned proposal 258 to 143.
There were nine candidates vying for five justice of the peace positions in Readsboro, with Betty Bolognani (275), Robert Tool (255), Arthur Passardi (207), Helyn Strom-Henriksen (189), and Donna Brewer (161) winning positions.
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