It will be tomorrow at the earliest before Annette Smith, the unlikely and reluctant pol from Danby, finds out whether an unsolicited write-in campaign on her behalf will give her a chance to debate Gov. Peter Shumlin during the General Election season.
Anti-wind forces and a group of activists who oppose the bedding of the F-35 in Burlington, have joined forces to support Smith, an assertive environmental activist, as the Progressive candidate for governor. She has gained particular attention this year as developers have unveiled plans for a dozen industrial projects, three of which are in the Northeast Kingdom. (Sheffield Wind is complete.)
Never mind that the candidate on the ticket, Martha Abbott, is the chair of the Progressive Party, and that the unlikely NIMBY bedfellows got started on their campaign 17 days before the primary on Aug. 28.
Even so, they managed to rally enough support to give Smith a running chance at the slot. According to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s office, with 77 percent of town clerks reporting, Smith got 258 write-in votes and Abbott has received 304.
The write-in votes, however, are the last to be reported by town clerks, according to Jim Condos, Secretary of State. Often election officials disregard the write-ins on election night and only file the information when the formal election reports are due 72 hours afterward.
While the gap of 46 votes may seem wide, advocates for Smith say the underreporting may give her an unexpected advantage.
Stephanie Kaplan, one of Smith’s backers, says the town of Craftsbury didn’t include 33 write-in votes and another nine ballots may be coming from Walden.
Martha Abbott appears not to be too worried by her challenger’s electoral performance. “I think it’s great to have a primary contest in the Progressive Party. It’s good for people to participate and express their views,” Abbott said, though she said it would have been better had the activists participated in the party selection process instead of entering the race at the last minute.
Abbott supports industrial wind power, she said, although Progressives have not taken a stand on the issue. Progressives are not seeking to unseat Shumlin, she said, because he has taken up two of the party’s signature issues: closing Vermont Yankee and single-payer health care reforms. Abbott has suggested she might step out of the race if she wins to make way for Shumlin.
Don’t mistake that move, however, as outright support. “We’re staying out of the race, which is different than endorsing him,” Abbott said.
Kaplan says she suspects that a number of voters who voted the Democratic ticket so they could cast ballots in the Vermont Attorney General race also wrote in Smith as a protest vote. Shumlin received 29,377 votes in the primary; 973 voters or about 3 percent wrote in alternative candidates under the governor’s name, according to information from the Secretary of State website.
“We have friends who felt strongly about Vermont Attorney General’s race and dislike Shumlin, so it will be really interesting to see how many votes Annette got in protest against the governor,” Kaplan said.
