By Guy Page
A sample primary ballot posted on the Town of Washington’s website incorrectly listed Republican and Democratic state Senate candidates for the wrong district, an error that the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office says was made by the town clerk and has since been corrected.
The mistake was first identified by H. Brooke Paige, the perennial Republican candidate for several statewide offices, who reviewed the sample ballots posted online for his incongruously-named hometown of Washington, which is located in Orange County. Paige said the ballots incorrectly listed state Senate candidates from the Barre City/Barre Town district rather than the Orange-1 district.
“I was reviewing my town’s primary ballots … and I found that the ballots for both the Republican and Democratic Primary erroneously have the names of the State Senatorial Candidates for Barre City / Barre Town (Washington-Orange) printed on them,” Paige wrote in an email. He noted that Brookfield resident John Benson is the Republican state Senate candidate for the Orange-1 district.
Paige also questioned whether the same error appeared in neighboring towns.
“I have discovered that the ballots for the Town of Orange have the same ‘problem’ and suspect that the ballots for Vershire and Corinth do as well,” he wrote.
He expressed concern because absentee voting has already begun.
“Our town clerk has been handing out ballots for absentee voters for over a week now and I am unsure how many early voters have filled out their ballots and deposited them in the ballot box,” Paige said.
In response to an inquiry from the Vermont Daily Chronicle, Wesley Dunn of the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office said the issue was limited to the sample ballot posted online and did not affect the official absentee ballots sent to voters.
“The town clerk in Washington had mistakenly posted the incorrect sample ballot to the town website,” Dunn said. “This error has been corrected on the town website. The correct paper ballots were sent to those voters requesting absentee ballots. Thanks again for reaching out.”
The Secretary of State’s Office did not indicate whether any other municipalities had posted incorrect sample ballots online. According to Dunn, voters who received absentee ballots were sent the correct paper ballots for their district.