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Mapping absentee balloting
More than half of Vermonters have voted — above 240,000 votes — according to the Community News Service Vote tracker map based on data from the Office of Secretary of State. The town by town map shows Shelburne, Norwich, Calais, Plainfield with the highest vote by mail numbers and Searsburg, Panton, Plymouth and Pownal as towns where voters prefer to vote in person. (Illustration by Juli Baldics).
How long do people hold onto their absentee ballots?
In research on three primary elections; 2016, 2018 & 2020, Center for Research on Vermont students found that voters held their ballots from between eight and 15 days. Ballots requested grew from 24,000 in 2016 to 110,000 in the March 2020 primary. Some towns had faster return times and some towns had slower. See an overview here and maps comparing 2016, 2018 and 2020.
Vermont Ranked No. 9 in Ease of Voting
A study conducted by Northern Illinois University has put together a top-fifty list of states in order of ease of voting in elections. Accounting for registration deadlines, voter-regulations, automatic voter registration, voter ID laws, early voting and mail-in voting, the study placed Vermont at number 9. The state jumped 12 places since 2016, a result of comprehensive changes in its voting laws. Oregon is number 1, and Texas is number 50.
Vermont Receives a B-Grade for its Vote-By-Mail System
Another study, however, suggests that we could have done better. Brookings Institute gave Vermont a B for voting-by-mail during a pandemic. This was, admittedly, better than a lot of states. There were only nine states who managed to secure an A and twenty-five states were ranked at C or below.
Incarcerated Voters
More than 60 percent of incarcerated Vermonters registered to vote have voted, according to new research. Ironically the corrections facility with the highest percent of registered voters is the Mississippi facility — a privately run prison — where only the Vermonters are allowed to vote.
Elections Matter
A good way of seeing what is important to a state’s government is to follow where it spends its money. A recent study of states in New England has looked at environmental-related spending, observing correlations between said spending and other spending, alongside political factors. They found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that environmental spending directly correlated with the percentage of democratic leadership in the state. Perhaps more interestingly, they found that the states with higher environmental spending were the states with greater education spending.
The first TV candidate
Before there was Donald Trump, there was Patrick Leahy. And after Donald Trump there will be Patrick Leahy. Leahy’s 1974 “Children’s Crusade” campaign used TV advertising in new in effective ways to propel the then 30-year old to victory. Leahy biography Phil Baruth describes Leahy’s skills with the media in the book “A Life in Scenes” — see an interview and story on RETN here.
How many teats on a cow?
Revisit this famous VPR debate with a special edition of the Mudszn Podcast – the story of the movie star/farmer Fred Tuttle who, despite being outspent about $400,000 to $1 won the Republican Primary for US Senate. Note: learn how to pronounce Vermont towns before you run for statewide office. And of course, re-watch Man with a Plan to fully understand this true story in which life imitates art and then art becomes life.
When Red turned blue
On election night 2016, TV networks called Vermont first – a pattern which may repeat on Tuesday. It was not always this way. In fact, Vermont was a consistently Republican state into the 1980s (with the state last voting red in the election of George H.W. Bush in 1988). And it was only in 1962, that the state elected a Democratic governor. The book by Sam Hand, Anthony Marro, and Steve Terry, Philip Hoff: How Red Turned to Blue in the Green Mountain State, is the definitive work on this period.
More liberal over time
With policies like civil unions, universal health care programs and a democratic legislature, Vermont today is a politically liberal state. But in 1936 it was one of the most conservative states in the country, with stingy welfare policies and lax laws protecting women in the workplace. A recent study by MIT researchers, measures the shifts in liberalism or conservatism of all 50 U.S. states over eight decades. Some states like Vermont, Delaware and Maryland were once more conservative than average, they are now in the top quartile of liberalism. While other states like Idaho and Louisiana have moved right. States have become more politically polarized over the last 20 years–in both national elections and state-level policies.
Election coverage & Vermont media
Vermont’s media outlets are poised to provide excellent coverage on election day. Several outlets will be running live election day blogs, including Seven Days and VT Digger and Vermont Edition’s evening program (we’ll miss you Jane) and of course the Secretary of State’s website and WCAX are posting live results. See this shout out to Seven Days and VT Digger in the NYT, recognizing the role of the media in Vermont’s COVID success. And speaking of Vermont in the national news, two Vermont candidates who lost elections by single votes are featured in Full Frontal with Samantha Bee; Sarah Buxton and Terry Bouricious.
The Most Interesting Man in the World Urges You To Vote Early
Jonathan Goldsmith, a Vermont resident known for his role as The Most Interesting Man in the World in the Dos Equis beer commercials, delivered a non-partisan public service announcement sponsored by the Vermont Secretary of State. In the PSA, available here, he urges voters to mail in their ballots early. Viewers are given detailed instructions on how voting by mail works in the state of Vermont, alongside tongue-in-cheek references to the popular commercial Goldsmith is known for. (Note, we checked — he voted.)
Top political events of the 20th Century
Chris Graff, in his essential book on Vermont politics; Dateline Vermont, names the Hoff election No #4 on the list of major political events in Vermont in the 20th Century. Bernie Sanders’ election as Mayor of Burlington is No #18. But what if Chris added events from the 2000s??? We put that question to Chris and he said: “The 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders, the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean, and the 2001 declaration of independence of U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords.” Read more of Chris’s answer here.
And then came Bernie
A lower profile set of elections–socialist mayors of Barre–are discussed in Robert E. Weir, “Solid Men in the Granite City: Municipal Socialism in Barre, Vermont, 1916-1931,” (Vermont History, 2015). The final section of that article, “Postscript: The Future of Third Party Movements?” discusses the mayoral career of Bernie Sanders. Sanders, of course, is an important and interesting player in Vermont electoral politics, with a long history of third party attempts at the governorship and U.S. Senate, and of course for U.S. President. The best book on the pre-Congress years is by Greg Guma, The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution (1989).
Politics starts a paper
News accounts of the 1840 “log cabin and hard cider” campaign event when Daniel Webster addressed a crowd of 15,000 led to the creation of the State Banner. No account exists of Webster’s oration on behalf of the Whig ticket but the Vermont Gazette, a partisan Democrat weekly, poked fun at “little Hall” and made other disparaging remarks about Whigs. Hall and fellow Whigs were not amused so they organized a newspaper that would better reflect their views. launching the State Banner in 1841. Thanks to Tyler Resch.
UVM Voter Turnout
In 2016, about 42% of students at UVM voted. Business and Engineering students voted at under 30 percent while social sciences topped the disciplines at about 50%. What it will be in 2020 may say alot about who the next president of the U.S. is. You can read more about the campus data here.
Election Ode (1801)
Jeremiah Ingalls composed both Election Ode and Election Hymn to be sung on the occasion of the election sermon, given at the opening of the State Legislature. See pp 138-139 of the History of Newbury, VT ed. by Wells. (Thanks to Meredith Wright).
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Copyright © 2019 Center for Research on Vermont, All rights reserved.
The Vermont Research News is a bi-monthly curated collection of Vermont research — focused on research in the Vermont “laboratory” — research that provides original knowledge to the world and research that adds to an understanding of the state’s social, economic, cultural and physical environment.
Send your news items to Newsletter Editors Martha Hrdy, Nicholas Kelm, or Richard Watts.
In a collaboration with VT Digger, the newsletter is now published online. CRVT is responsible for the content. The newsletter is published on the 1st and 15th of each month.