The state’s official election results were certified Tuesday morning.
Sen. Bernie Sanders came in third in the presidential race in Vermont, behind Hillary Clinton’s 55.7 percent and Donald Trump’s 29.8 percent. Sanders outstripped Libertarian Gary Johnson, who was fourth with 3.1 percent, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, both of whom were on the ballot.
Total write-in candidates came to 7.2 percent of the vote, with Sanders the overwhelming favorite.
The canvassing committee certified the results Tuesday at Secretary of State Jim Condos’ office in Montpelier. The panel included Condos and designees from each of the Democratic, Progressive and Republican parties.
Condos said he warned town clerks ahead of Election Day that they would likely see a high rate of write-ins this year. Tabulating write-ins is one of the more tedious parts of the job, he said.
Retired Middlebury College political science professor Eric Davis noted that the write-in vote for Sanders is the highest since 1856, when the competition between the Republican and Democratic parties largely began.
He also noted that Clinton received about 11 percent less of the Vermont vote than President Barack Obama did in 2012.
“Many Democrats or Democratic leaners in Vermont just could not bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton, but wrote in Bernie Sanders’ name instead,” Davis said.
According to official election results, David Zuckerman, the Progressive/Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, won 49.9 percent of the vote in that race. Republican Randy Brock, who came in second with 43.5 percent, conceded the race on election night.
Zuckerman’s total raised some question Tuesday of whether the race would need to go before the Legislature in January to be resolved. Vermont law requires that the Legislature decide a race by secret ballot if no candidate receives more than half the vote.
Traditionally the Legislature has not counted blank Election Day ballots in determining whether a candidate has reached the 50 percent mark, according to Senate Secretary John Bloomer. Without blank ballots, which the secretary of state’s results tallied at 4.2 percent, Zuckerman has more than 50 percent.
“I don’t believe I’m going to have to go through an actual legislative vote specifically for the lieutenant governor’s office,” Zuckerman said Tuesday.
Condos and Bloomer have been in contact. Bloomer said he expects the question will be resolved within a couple of days.
According to the secretary of state’s office, there were 471,619 registered voters this year — a record.
Of those registered, 320,467 cast ballots. The turnout rate was 70.6 percent. Total turnout was about 6,000 shy of the record, which was set in the 2008 general election, according to Condos.
Another record was set in early and absentee voting: 95,203 voters opted for absentee ballots, meaning 18.6 percent of all votes cast were early or absentee.
“Our systems are working well,” Condos said.
He said his office had no reports of voter intimidation.
According to Condos, recounts have been requested in three House races and one Senate race.
Condos expects to bring some proposals for changing aspects of the election system to the Legislature next year, including addressing confusion about tracking absentee ballot requests.
He will also suggest lawmakers consider mandating time off on Election Day or creating a state holiday that day to allow workers time to cast their ballots.
“Voting is the very basis of our democracy. It’s the very core. It all starts with the vote,” Condos said.