With just a week to go, one-third of mailed ballots returned
by Guy Page
Seven days before Election Day November 5, a third of Vermont voters had already voted, according to an interactive map prepared by the UVM Center for Community News.
The towns with the best reported voter turnout so far are Charlotte in Chittenden County, and Calais in Washington County, with 44% already recorded, according to the map. The statistics reflect the percentage of returned ballots compared to the number of ballots mailed out. Other leading towns trailing with 43% returned include:
3. Norwich, a Dartmouth College ‘bedroom town’ in Windsor County, 43%;
4. Pomfret, Norwich’s neighbor in Windsor County, 43%;
5. Weston, an afluent destination community in southern Windsor County.
Except for Weston, which is represented by independent Kelly Pajala (not seeking re-election), All four top-return towns are ‘deep blue’ towns that reliably elect Democrat legislators.
“UVM Center for Community News data visualization engineer Ben Cooley pulled together figures from the Office of the Vermont Secretary of State to track the number and percent of registered voters in each town whose ballots have been received and tallied,” according to a Community News Service news report.
The lowest turnout town is Sandgate (13%), a small Bennington County town on the New York border. Sandgate voted for 58-37% for Biden over Trump in 2020, above the GOP candidate’s 31% statewide average.