Vermont Secretary of State election, 2010

Secretary of State 2010 elections
Alabama • Arizona • Arkansas • California Colorado • Connecticut • Georgia • Idaho Illinois • Indiana • Iowa • Kansas Massachusetts • Michigan • Minnesota Nebraska • Nevada • New Mexico • North Dakota Ohio • Rhode Island • South Carolina South Dakota • Vermont • Wisconsin • Wyoming Candidates for Secretary of State, 2010 Polls, 2010 Secretary of State elections
2010 Election information
Primary election dates Statewide elections, 2010 November 2nd General Election results National Association of Secretaries of State Secretary of State Project
Secretary of State news headlines

In the Vermont Secretary of State election of 2010, held on November 2, 2010, Democrat Jim Condos defeated Republican Jason Gibbs and Liberty Union Party candidate Leslie Marmorale. The candidates sought to replace former secretary of state Deborah Markowitz, who made an unsuccessful run for Vermont Governor in 2010.

Both Condos and Gibbs won their partisan primary elections on August 24. A Progressive party candidate, Peter A. Cooper, also won his party's primary election, but did not appear on the ballot in November.

June 17 was the deadline for filing nominating signatures.

Background

A month after filing the proper paperwork to set the foundation for her campaign, Markowitz formally announced her entry into the state's gubernatorial contest on March 8, 2009. She faced off against four other candidates - State Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, State Senator Douglas Racine, State Senator Susan Bartlett, and former State Senator Matt Dunne - vying for the Democratic nomination.

Race tracking

Ballotpedia predicted a Democrat would become Vermont's new Secretary of State.

2010 Ballotpedia Race Rankings for Vermont Secretary of State
Race Tracker		Race Rating
Ballotpedia		Likely Democrat
Overall Call		Likely Democrat

General election

Results

2010 Race for Secretary of State - General Election
Party		Candidate	Vote Percentage
	Democratic Party	a Jim Condos	53.5%
	Republican Party	Jason Gibbs	44.1%
	Liberty Union	Leslie Marmorale	2.3%
	Write-In		0.1%
Total Votes			229,280

Finances

According to Follow the Money, the breakdown of campaign finances for each of the candidates is as follows:

Vermont Secretary of State Campaign Finance
Candidate		Total Contributions
Jim Condos		$83,142
Jason Gibbs		$69,947
Leslie Marmorale		$0

Endorsements

Jim Condos

• Professional Fire Fighters of Vermont
• United Profession AFT Vermont
• Vermont AFL-CIO
• Vermont League of Conservation Voters (VLCV)
• Vermont State Building Trades Council
• Vermont State Employees’ Association
• Vermont Troopers’ Association

Jason Gibbs

• Burlington Free Press, local newspaper
• Herald of Randolph, local newspaper
• Manchester Journal, local newspaper
• National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)

Polling

See also: Polls, 2010 Secretaries of State

Mason-Dixon Poll

Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc., an independent polling firm and the nation's most active state polling organization, surveyed 625 registered voters from across Vermont between October 11 and 13, 2010. The polling data shows that Jim Condos holds a narrow three percent point advantage over his Republican challenger, Jason Gibbs, with three weeks left until the general election. Further breakdown of the polling numbers show independent voters, a much sought after voter demographic, favoring Gibbs over Condos thirty-nine to twenty-nine percent.

Mason-Dixon Poll - October 11 - 13, 2010
Candidates		Percentage
Jim Condos (D)		39%
Jason Gibbs (R)		36%
Leslie Marmorale (LUP)		2%
Undecided		23%
Total voters		625

Commercials

Jason Gibbs

August 24, 2010 primaries

See also: Vermont gubernatorial election, 2010; Vermont Attorney General election, 2010

Democratic primary

Candidates

• Attorney Charles Merriman
• Former state senator Jim Condos

Electoral results

2010 Race for Secretary of State - Democratic Primary
Party		Candidate	Vote Percentage
	Democratic Party	a Jim Condos	66.3%
	Democratic Party	Charles Merriman	32.1%
	Write-In		1.6%
Total Votes			54,929

Endorsements

Jim Condos

• Addison County Independent, a local newspaper
• Bennington Banner, local newspaper
• Green Mountain Daily
• Professional Fire Fighters of Vermont
• Vermont AFL-CIO
• Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA)
• Vermont Troopers Association (VTA)

Charles Merriman

• The Manchester Journal, local newspaper

Finances

According to the Vermont Secretary of State's Office, as of August 2, 2010, here is the breakdown of campaign finances for each of the candidates:

Jim Condos Campaign Finance Reports
Report		Date Filed	Beginning Balance	Contributions	In-Kind	Other Sources	Expenditures	Cash on Hand
January 1 - July 1, 2010		July 15, 2010	$0.00	$22,714.00	$0.00	$0.00	$8,920.00	$13,794.00

Charles Merriman Campaign Finance Reports
Report		Date Filed	Beginning Balance	Contributions	In-Kind	Other Sources	Expenditures	Cash on Hand
January 1 - July 1, 2010		July 21, 2010	$5,097.99	$16,419.00	$750.00	$11,021.38	$29,155.82	$3,382.55

Progressive Party primary

Candidates

• Peter A. Cooper

Republican primary

Candidates

• Attorney Chris Roy
• Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation Jason Gibbs

Public debates

Although Gibbs and Roy started on friendly terms with each other, tempers began to flare over the issue of public debates. A few days after Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation Jason Gibbs launched his campaign, Roy, his sole challenger in the Republican primary contest, challenged him to a series of thirteen public debates, one for each week until the August 24 primary election. Gibbs responded by saying that "he would be happy to debate as frequently as his campaign schedule allows, but added that he would prefer to have all the secretary of state candidates on stage with them for the debates."

Roy, however, accused Gibbs of being less than honest with the voters of Vermont in his opinion about the issue of public debates. In an email sent to supporters, Gibbs referred to the idea of public debates between him and primary challenger as "silliness" and argued that his "response to the debate question depended on the feedback he got from his supporters." Roy said that Gibbs was engaging in typical political double-speak and, rather than making decisions himself, places the burden on his supporters as to whether or not he should be involved in something that would allow the voters "to see us together as we engage in a productive exchange of ideas."

Electoral results

2010 Race for Secretary of State - Republican Primary
Party		Candidate	Vote Percentage
	Republican Party	a Jason Gibbs	56.3%
	Republican Party	Chris Roy	42.9%
	Write-In		0.7%
Total Votes			25,921

Finances

According to the Vermont Secretary of State's Office, as of August 2, 2010, here is the breakdown of campaign finances for each of the candidates:

Jason Gibbs Campaign Finance Reports
Report		Date Filed	Beginning Balance	Contributions	In-Kind	Other Sources	Expenditures	Cash on Hand
January 1 - July 1, 2010		July 15, 2010	$0.00	$20,986.03	$4,966.03	$0.00	$8,067.69	$12,918.34

Chris Roy Campaign Finance Reports
Report		Date Filed	Beginning Balance	Contributions	In-Kind	Other Sources	Expenditures	Cash on Hand
January 1 - July 1, 2010		July 16, 2010	$(677.77)	$43,315.35	$2,987.35	$5,031.35	$32,500.95	$10,136.63

Endorsements

Jason Gibbs

• Addison County Independent, a local newspaper
• Caledonian Record, a local newspaper
• Jim Douglas, Republican Governor of Vermont
• The Manchester Journal, local newspaper
• State Representative Joe Acinapura
• State Representative Joseph Baker
• State Representative Carolyn Branagan
• State Representative Patrick Brennan
• State Representative William Canfield
• State Representative Peter Fagan
• State Representative Robert Helm
• State Representative Adam Howard
• State Representative Patricia McDonald
• State Representative Charles Shaw

Chris Roy

• Bennington Banner, local newspaper
• John McCain, member of the United States Senate and former presidential candidate
• Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts and presidential candidate
• Tim Pawlenty, Republican Governor of Minnesota

Controversies

National Popular Vote Act

The National Popular Vote Act (NPVA) is part of a nationwide movement, backed mainly by prominent and influential left-leaning political activists, among them billionaire George Soros, seeking to undermine the electoral college. Rather then push for a federal amendment drastically altering this process or removing it altogether, proponents of NPVA are going from state-to-state requesting states legislatures to vote in favor of entering an interstate agreement whereby each of the respective individual states is required to "award state electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote plurality, despite the vote in their own states." It is believed that if a coalition of individual states controlling at least 270 electoral votes is formed, it could effectively disable the electoral college without having to drag out a lengthy, and most likely unsuccessful, constitutional amendment process. The problem, critics argue, is that this directly undermines the procedural method of making changes to the United States Constitution that the Founding Fathers established over two-hundred years ago.

As of July 2010, only six states, none of them considered "battleground" or "swing" states, have entered the compact - New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington, and Hawaii, after the state legislature overrode the veto by the governor. James Condos, along with fellow state senators Bill Carris, Claire Ayer, Donald Collins, Hinda Miller, Peter Shumlin, and Richard McCormack, introduced the National Popular Vote measure, Senate Bill 270 (S. 270), to the Vermont State Senate in January 2008. Though it passed both the House and the Senate in the Vermont State Legislature, the National Popular Vote bill was vetoed by Republican Governor Jim Douglas.

External links

• List of candidates qualified for Vermont's August 24 Secretary of State primary
• Green Paper's list of candidates for Vermont Secretary of State, 2010

General Election candidates

• Jim Condos for Secretary of State Campaign website
• Jason Gibbs for Secretary of State Campaign website

Former candidates

• Chris Roy for Secretary of State Campaign website
• Charles Merriman for Vermont Secretary of State Campaign website