Rebecca Balint and Jeanette White received the most votes for the Democratic primary today in Brattleboro. Balint had 699 votes; White received 751.
Roger Albee garnered 269 votes and Joan Bowman had a total of 128.
Shumlin and Welch received solid support.
Republicans, Libert Unionists, and Progressives had relatively low vote totals.
Look at the attachment below for full details.
Why the long wait?
Official results won’t be announced till next Tuesday, if I understand correctly.
That is a big change from past elections. Has there been a general announcement about this from the Secretary of State’s office about this?
Will there be a week’s wait to find out who our governor is in November?
A week to find out who the new president is in November 2016?
This is why we have expensive voting machines – so we can wait a week?
expensive voting machines
They need a week to insure that the machines give them the desired results.
Write-in?
VT has a fair amount of write-in votes but don’t know if that holds it up.
Official vs unofficial results
Unfortunately, yes, it does take a long time for the legally defined “official” results to be reported. To be official means that the results have been sent to the secretary of state’s office and that the “canvassing” in each county (tallying representative and senate votes for the entire district) has been completed. Here is a link to the sec. of state page on this: https://www.sec.state.vt.us/elections/elections-calendar-of-events.aspx
There are at least a few arcane, yet when thought through, sensible, rules/laws governing the counting and recording of the official results, and for those of us who are democracy nerds, it is interesting. The Vermont State Statutes on Elections is a comprehensive place to get information. Title 17 is on elections, and primaries are addressed specifically at http://www.leg.state.vt.us/statutes/sections.cfm?Title=17&Chapter=049
And yes, counting the write-ins does take up some of the initial time.
...except in very close races
I would add that most often, except in very close races, you can see who is leading and likely to win. Also, based on the fact that unofficial counts are given with % of precincts reporting. The higher the % of precincts reporting the more reliable are the tally per candidate.
You often know who is the winner based on that before precincts reach 100%.