Salmon up by 202 votes for auditor
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By Ross Sneyd Associated Press - Published: December 14, 2006
MONTPELIER — The too-close-to-call race between state Auditor Randy Brock and Democratic challenger Thomas M. Salmon is now down to Chittenden County — and perhaps just 202 votes.
County clerks in Rutland and Windsor counties completed their recounts Wednesday, giving Salmon — who lost by 137 votes Nov. 7 but requested a recount — another handful of votes. Only populous Chittenden County still had ballots to review and it wasn't expected to finish its manual count until early next week.
Not counting roughly 63,000 ballots to be tallied in greater Burlington, Salmon had a lead of 2,404 votes from the other 13 counties as of Wednesday, according to a review of county tallies by The Associated Press. That review showed Salmon with 86,417 votes to 84,013 for Brock.
It's impossible to determine, however, whether Salmon will hold on to the lead. He was outpolled by Brock in Chittenden County on Election Day, according to the original tally certified by the secretary of state's office a week later. Brock won by 2,202 votes in that count.
Salmon, the son of former Gov. Thomas P. Salmon, was far from ready to declare victory Wednesday.
"I'm speechless," he said after told the unofficial outcome in 13 of Vermont's 14 counties.
"I'm really staying out of it as much as I can and standing by for complete information," Salmon said. "I think people want to respect that I'm not counting any chickens at this point."
Brock didn't immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
The final certification cannot take place until Washington County Superior Court Judge Mary Miles Teachout adds up all of the county totals and declares a winner.
Secretary of State Deb Markowitz said the bulk of changes in the recount have come in communities that still use paper ballots, requiring elections officials to count them by hand on election night.
As clerks in some of those communities transferred vote totals from individual tally sheets to a master summary sheet, they mistakenly assigned votes to Liberty Union Party candidate Jerry Levy that should have gone to Salmon, according to Markowitz.
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