 All right Today, you can change the course of fate. It's a decision that you must make to choose the one you think is great for you, you have to vote. Vote, vote, vote. If your voice is loud and clear, make some choices they will hear. Name a woman, a man, name someone who understands you too. You need to vote. Vote, vote, vote. You need to vote. You need to vote. You need to. It's up to you. It's up to us. Hello and welcome to Town Meeting Television and our live at 525 Election Results Preview Show. I'm Matt Kelly. An historic day and night ahead of us as we get through a presidential election with a controversial president. We are dealing with pandemic COVID effects as well and record turnout due to every voter registered in the state of Vermont receiving a mail-in ballot. And here to help me make sense of the whole evening is my longtime election co-host Diane Meyerhoff. Diane, a pleasure to be sitting opposite you. It's different for us here as well as we enjoy social distancing ourselves here in studio. It's great to be with you tonight, Matt. I'm much looking forward to our discussion. And yes, I think we're doing pretty well so far in our distancing. So just to let everyone know that we do not have masks on shockingly, right? But yeah, it's great. And turnout has been incredibly high. It is great to see. We were talking earlier about the ballots going out to every registered voter. And 80% of voters have returned those ballots as opposed to in terms of versus 2016, which was also a pretty high outcome. So record turnout. Secretary of State is saying he expects very high turnout. Historic numbers, really. Really? Absolutely. I mean, certainly for early voting, but that has not been as popular, but certainly for early voting. And I think overall as well. And of course, we have to deal with weather. Very winter-like out in our viewing audience today. And of course, just wait 48 hours. That may change. But for me personally, that's why I enjoy early or as I like to refer to it as convenience voting so you're not at the mercy of the elements. That's quite the marketing strategy. I like that. I hadn't heard convenience voting. I'm just so glad I got over absentee voting because that took me a long time to get to early voting. But, you know, amazing. Also, other states have early voting where people can go to the polls early. Right. And Houston apparently 24-hour voting. Wow. Isn't that something? That's incredible. Really incredible. And nationwide, in fact, we're seeing record numbers. Over 95 million Americans have voted before today. So that's just an incredible number when, again, you take into account the current mildew of what we're dealing with. Absolutely. And also, we should also say that from what we've heard so far, it's gone very smoothly. And I think there was some concern, certainly during the election as well as afterwards, on what might happen. And so far, very peaceful, working well. You know, I heard from some people who are at the polls working. And, you know, they are there just, they are pumped for today. They really are. They're going to feed those ballots through as fast as they can. Sure. Yeah. And in fact, you know, counting has already been underway of early voting ballots. And in fact, voting integrity really is a big issue across the nation, making sure that every vote gets counted. As we said here in Vermont, more than 80% of registered voters have already cast their ballots versus 2016. So let's go ahead and take a look at some of the messages that are being shared with voters at this time of year. We're getting close to November 3, Election Day. But be prepared. Things will be different this November. Why? Here are three reasons. Number one, be ready to go to bed without knowing the final results. Because so many people will vote by mail this year, it will take a lot longer to count ballots and report results. This is not a bad thing. It simply means our election officials are working carefully and not rushing to judgment. But beware of disinformation campaigns rushing to fill the airwaves and social media with claims of fraud, abuse, and other shenanigans. Consider the source and remember the calls you hear from media on election night are not final results. Make sure that what you're hearing is based on official announcements from local and state election officials. Everything else is just noise. Number two, voting in person will be a different experience. You may have always voted at the school or community center down the street, but this year a lot of neighborhood voting sites are being consolidated into larger polling places to keep staff and voters safe. You should get a notification if your polling place has moved, but you can always check at canivote.org. Canivote.org is a nonpartisan site hosted by the National Association of Secretaries of State, which, along with BPC and others, also hosts the Trusted Info 2020 campaign against disinformation. And yes, consolidated polling places and other public health precautions may mean longer lines if you vote in person. Number three, voting by mail will be huge. Because of the pandemic, many states are expanding absentee voting. Even before the pandemic, five states already sent every registered voter a ballot in the mail about three weeks before election day. Another 29 states and the District of Columbia have what's called a no excuse absentee voting system. That means you don't need any reason to vote by mail. You just need to fill out an absentee ballot request form. Many states will mail them to you if you register to vote, but if you aren't sure what your state does, go to canivote.org. And even if your state requires a reason for by mail voting, many have expanded those excuses to include concerns about the coronavirus. In many states, you can already request your absentee ballot. Do your part to flatten the curve of absentee voting by requesting and casting your ballot early. Voting in the middle of a pandemic will be unlike anything we've experienced in the past century. But understanding your rights and being prepared ahead of time can help make sure your voice will be heard at the ballot box. Well, a reminder that our live results show gets underway at 7.30 here at town meeting television. And if you're heading out tonight, you can watch us at ch17.tv. We're streaming live on YouTube. And we also have a broadcast partner here tonight, our local low-power, community-powered radio station, 99.3 FM WBTV FM. So if you're heading out, you can check them out on your car radio. Well, joining us throughout the evening will be Lauren Glendavidian. She's in Studio Z, and she'll be taking a look at national and statewide races for us. L.G.? Good evening, Dan Logan. It's nice to be back with you again tonight. We're not going to be looking very closely at the national elections, but certainly the nation's eyes will be on those results. You've been following these results, and well, not the results, but you've been following the races I know pretty closely, even from your perch in Canada. And I wonder, what are you going to be looking for tonight as the hours unfold? I think first and foremost, Florida. I think all eyes will be on the Florida numbers as they come in. Really, the canary in the coal mine, so to speak, I think of how the night is going to go. And probably a good predictor of whether the polls in the rest of the states have been accurate. If we see a big deviation in that poll, that will likely propagate in the rest of the polling coming through from the states in advance the election versus the results that we get in tonight, hopefully tonight, maybe in the next few days. After that, probably North Carolina, I would turn to, even though I think they've extended their hours, or maybe that's South Carolina. So the results will be coming a little later than we anticipated in that state, but yeah, I think Florida is really going to be the point of interest to start the night. And if that is contested or goes to Trump, then we're going to be looking at the Carolinas. We're going to be looking at Texas, Georgia. And see how the night's going to unfold. There's been some talk that the Democrats have made headway in the Midwest and in the Sun Belt. Have you followed anything along those lines? Yeah, I mean, if you look at the polls, I would say that is accurate. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I'm a little gun shy for polling, given, given how the events unfolded four years ago today. So, yeah, I guess we'll see. I think anybody that has a really concrete prediction right now might be speaking a little out of turn. Yeah. No, I think you're right. So we'll stay tuned. I know you'll be working pretty busily tonight, but where are you going to be looking for your national result? Great question. I'm not sure. I think the Canadian coverage will be interesting to see for that perspective. I in terms of print journalism, I'll probably be following along in the Guardian. I find it to be pretty on point. And I might flick on Fox for fun. All right. Well, we'll be looking for, we'll be interested to see how those results unfold tonight. Thanks so much for sharing your views and it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thanks so much. Thank you. ULG. It's wonderful to have you on the show here this election. Well, as we go to our results page, it's an opportunity for us to take a look at some of the races that were particularly following Diane. Of course, we're looking to follow the governor and lieutenant's governor. But there are some local races, particularly that we are very keyed in on. Absolutely. Certainly we'll talk later about the state senate races. That's an important one. Six seats, 13 candidates. And there are 14 competitive house races across the state. And four towns here with ballot items that are of interest. And we should also let folks know there are a lot of uncontested races too. And folks can find those. Yep. So you can go to ch17.tv to get the uncontested race results. Again, a lot of the Vermont house races in our viewing area have already been decided as the candidates faced competition in their primary, but in the general election they had no challengers. Absolutely. And so, but here we're actually going through the results. Well, not yet, right? But this is the setup for our results tonight. So I thought maybe we'll just talk about a couple of the races that are of interest for our viewers. Yeah, I know in Burlington we're particularly looking at Ward 5, the Chittenden 6-5 district. Absolutely. In the south end, it's the only contested house race in Burlington, believe it or not. Isn't that seem hard to imagine? I know, that's okay. Sometimes we're here on town meeting night and there's just so much competition. Well, and I would have thought too if you didn't have to go and get signatures this year that we would have seen a larger segment of the population coming out to run. Yeah, and I wonder if this is just, this is partly a pandemic stuff. You know, the reason we didn't need signatures was because of the pandemic. And then I wonder if it's just people couldn't just couldn't pull it all together. I mean, there's so much going on. And it certainly changed the way campaigning was done. There was no door-to-door knocking on doors for votes. As I understand it was a lot more about phone calls this year. Yeah, isn't that interesting? We always think people are getting away from that, but we're back there again. So, as you said, the Burlington 65 in the South End, wards five and six, Joanna Letty Donovan and Mary Sullivan both retire. Yeah, two stalwarts, long-term Democrats, sort of the old guard, if you can say, stepping away from the role. Yes, but people stepping in, right? Sure. So we've got Tiffany Bloomley and Gabrielle Stebbins and both two Dems who have been a long history of activism in Vermont as well. Yeah. Tom LaCotta as well. Tom LaCotta, the independent, leans conservative, but also active in the community as well. It's very active, yeah. Got an award for the best block party in the state. Ah, okay. Well, that's something to run on, right? So in addition to Burlington, we should talk about Winooski. Right. That's a pretty interesting race. This is a big race, yeah. Yeah. So this is Winooski 67. Diana Gonzalez is vacating her seat. It's a two-seat district. Yeah. So we've got Hal Colston the Dem. Running for reelection. Sure. And then we've got one more seat and we've got two candidates, Taylor Small who's running as a Democrat progressive. I know often we talk more about, we'll probably talk more about that combination in the future. And she came in first, interestingly, ahead of Hal Colston during the Democratic primary for the seat, which is very interesting. If she indeed is elected, she'll be the first openly transgendered person to serve in the Vermont legislature. That is exciting. Interesting, huh? Yeah. So we're going to be setting night here tonight as we watch the Winooski House race. Yes. And we should say James Ehlers is also a candidate running. He's also running for state senate and he ran previously for governor. He's also running for that house seat. He has a little bit more recognition, name recognition. Possible. Yeah. Possible. Yeah. And of course, Winooski's also got a ballot issue regarding inclusive voting for all town residents. Absolutely. Yeah. I believe it's the second municipality that has done this. I think Montpelier passed this, but it's still in the state legislature because of course they have to approve these charter changes. But yes, this is for local elections that all residents can vote. And that's been back and forth in Winooski and back and forth in Burlington. Sure, sure. And of course, if it does pass, that doesn't mean that it's going to become law because again, it does have to go to the legislature just like it did with Montpelier and the legislature. The new legislature will have to approve that. Well, the top race between Governor Phil Scott and Dave Zuckerman will be deeply influenced by the governor's performance during COVID-19. You know, in any other year, it probably would have been a horse race, I think, between Zuckerman and Scott. But when you're in front of the electorate every day or twice a week during this pandemic, it's hard to overcome that visibility. So we have a video to speak about this. And of course, the national Democratic turnout may impact this race. I've done a lot with my team over the last four years in trying to make Vermont more affordable because it doesn't matter what we do. And we need to encourage more people to come into the state. We need to increase the demographics of our state. Do we need more people? We had a workforce challenge before the pandemic. We invest in broadband in our rural communities. Not only will it be helpful for education, but people can start businesses. People could expand businesses. People could relocate businesses to our rural areas. Broadband is an important issue. But we're going to need some help from Congress on that. An REA approach because it's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. All of us agree broadband is key to developing the economy in the future, but it's going to cost money. To me, when we're struggling, that's when we do ask the wealthiest to help, to build that infrastructure. And with my plan, there would be about $20 million a year to invest in those CUDs to help those communication union districts leverage what's already out there as federal money if the state puts in the match. The top 5% of those who pay taxes in their state make $159,000 per family and more. So we're talking about middle-class families that are going to be taxed more for some of those initiatives. I would also include more communities of color in my cabinet. I would have people at the table at the beginning of the conversations of making laws and policies and the budget to make sure there's a lens for where we would inadvertently be continuing that system of racism in our budget. There's no flip of the switch. There's no easy answer here. But we have to listen to what they're saying because it's real. You know, racism exists in our state, unfortunately. We see rare its ugly head on a weekly basis in some areas of the state. We have to stand up and put a stop to it. I appreciate that you gently stood up to President Trump. You've even said you want to join the Paris Accord, and yet our emissions are going up. You've dismissed the suggestions of your own panel, which you created, to invest in climate crisis. You need to do that. Charging infrastructure throughout the state if you're going to have EVs. EVs are part of the answer. You know, 50, 60% of the carbon emissions are due to transportation. So that's an easy place to go. I'm very excited about technology. I'm very excited about the evolution of electric vehicles. And so that's why I promoted that. That citizen pressure to say to those of us in elected office, we have to act for the future of our kids and for even the future tomorrow with respect to the climate crisis. We need to invest in carbon sequestration. We need to invest much more in weatherization. Under my earlier plan that the governor is not supportive of, we would be putting 20 million additional dollars per year into weatherization. Think of the jobs that it creates and think of the savings for working-class remoners who haven't been able to take as much advantage of weatherization because the funds just haven't been there. Because we have such a low case rate here and we've done such a great job in Vermont that we don't have the infections that other states do. But we are developing a plan. We'll submit it to the federal government and it'll be distributed just the way we have Zika and other initiatives over the years. And we're blessed to have a great health department, a great dedicated epi-team there. And it's really a good team atmosphere that has worked together throughout this pandemic. Hi, I'm Mary Dankle from the Fletcher Free Library and we're so grateful to Town Meeting TV for all they do for the community. What they've done for the Fletcher Free Library is helped us during this pandemic to promote our videos that expand our outreach and show library videos. They've also helped to promote our story walk in Letty Park and helped us make a promotional video. Thank you Town Meeting TV for all that you do to inform and help the community learn and grow. You're watching Town Meeting Television and are live at 525 Election Results Preview Show. I'm Matt Kelly with Diane Meyerhoff. Well, it was a cold day out at the polls but voters braved the elements nonetheless to be here in this next report from Barry Silver. I actually saw that Jim Condos put out a thing where you can sign into your voter page and see that your ballot has been received so I checked and saw that it was received so I feel totally confident. I believe in tradition I wanted to come and vote in person and I got all dressed up to weather a long wait but I didn't have to wait long at all so it was very smooth everybody almost knew what they were doing and I was very pleased and proud to be able to vote. What got you out of this cold day? What was the big thing? To vote for the people I think will help this country the most. Yeah, I just wanted to vote other than wanting to do my part and actually contribute. Feel like a breath of fresh air could come if Trump's not our president. That kind of change could happen but I'm concerned that a leader like Biden is also what gave us kind of the runway to have a leader like Trump. I think I probably share something that many of us share that this reality that we live in of choosing the lesser of two evils is just both disheartening but you can't not vote and that's where that guilt comes from. It's like well we have to participate. I'm just sitting with that I'm here doing my duty but I also just am continuing to challenge myself to show up every day and get involved in my community and try to make a difference inside my own heart as well. When my grandmother was born women couldn't vote and I'm proud of that 100-year heritage. I'm not proud of a lot of the racist tactics that women have at times but I'm very proud that women have the right to vote and I hope that we always will. Well the Nazis are back in America. Stereotypically if you were to take a cliche of American history, American pop culture, American cinema, American TV, America, we're the ones that kick the Nazis ass. Enough said. I cannot stand and let my country have the swastika be honored amongst the red, white and blue. It can't happen. So I vote today to ensure I do my part to see that stops now. It's a little confusing actually. I thought we would just put it in the machine but I guess we should have just done it earlier but we wanted to have the experience of voting on voting day but I've been waiting for this day for four years. Absolutely. It's better than Christmas. My melancholy got confused with my address. Honestly, I mean I would have gotten up earlier because I really wanted to get to the polls today. I just want to get my voice heard. Even though I know this day is given a crack, still every voice matters in its election so I really wanted to make sure my got heard this time around for sure. The mail is kind of sketchy I think with so much going on in this country I think like the handing it in personally was the way I would go. Can't really trust anybody. And I just... I really want Trump to be president again. I think this world is going to... He's a businessman. I hate to say it. He is getting richer. He is an asshole. But you know what? There weren't the rest of us. Well, we're not rich but some of us are assholes. And that's about it. It's our civic duty. We have to share our voice. We have to use that right that we have. It's so important to exercise that right. And you need people in office that are committed to not just their own ideals but to making this whole country work. And that's what's really important to me. So, got to get out and vote. That's interesting. Vermont is so heavily democratic that it probably doesn't make too much difference if you're a Trump supporter. Go ahead and vote for him. But you know, Biden will carry the state of Vermont. I think the state races probably have more immediate meaning for most voters. And all I can say is I did my piece. I voted every time since I've lived here. Decades. From Ward 3, that was reporter Barry Silver and videographer Scott Moody providing camera work for that report. And we thank them for that. Well, let's head back over to Studio Zed and Lauren Glendavidian taking a look at statewide races. Good evening, Dan Logan. It's a pleasure to see you. I know you've been working so hard for town meeting television to get the election forums going and really help grease the wheels of democracy. Thanks so much. Great to see you. Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. So tell us of what you're looking at for the state. I think we're done. State of Vermont has got a number of races. Maybe you could recap some of the top, the high level races that we'll be looking at tonight. Yeah, sure. We have a pretty stacked deck for the governor's race. Several candidates. I guess a little bit more name recognition than others. I would have to say if I had to forecast it that Phil Scott comes in as a favorite based on his handling of the pandemic and I think his polling numbers show that. We also have a lieutenant governor race that I think will come probably down to the two main party candidates. That's Scott Milne and Molly Gray. And I think that one is a little bit more hotly contested. So we'll see as the night progresses how that one unfolds. Yeah, a lot of down ticket or let down ballot races as well. The Essex races is quite interesting with a couple of new names on that. I think that's what 8183, something like that. But yeah, it should be an interesting night, especially to see how these votes come in and how quickly we see some results from some of these more local races. And tonight we're hoping to hear from a number of people. I understand we're going to have Congressman Welch with us. Yes, we are supposed to have Congressman Welch joining us. Somewhere after eight o'clock, I think we'll be when we have that interview on the air. And that should be quite interesting. And we do have, I think, 15 or 16 other local interviews lined up. So there'll be quite a bit of content tonight. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Thanks so much for your work and great to see you. Thanks so much. Back to you. Dan Logan in Studio Z. Thank you so much. Well, Diane, as we take a look at the state senate, this is the race in Chittenden County that we're really looking at. Due to the fact that there are some vacancies here with the departure of Tim Ash and Debbie Ingram, both not winning their primary, that creates a rare opening of two seats in the Chittenden County Senate race. Absolutely. And hotly contested 13 candidates including the four incumbents, as you mentioned. So the two Democrats who are vying for those seats are Keisha Ram, and she was a former House member, came in second in the primary behind Ginny Lyons. Wow. A long-term senator in Ginny Lyons. And so that's interesting, because that starts to move the numbers around a little bit and move the placeholders. Sure. We say the six-seat bubble. Right? So, and Thomas Chittenden, who's also a South Burlington city council and of course has the famous name, doesn't hurt, right? Sure, right. So he's the other Democrat running. And the question is, you know, is Chris Pearson, who came in sixth, so he's at the edge of that bubble, you know, is he vulnerable? Right. Because there are a whole list of Republicans involved. Sure. Camelia Case Long, Kylie Hollingsworth, Dean Rowland, Eric Erick. Running again. Sure. We've certainly heard from before. This is her third election. Mm-hmm. She's run twice before as an independent for Burlington's North District and Ward 4, coming up short both times. Absolutely. And she's a landlord in the New North End and also a fairly conservative as well. Mm-hmm, yeah. And Susan Bowen and Tom Chastany, also Republicans, and one independent, we've heard this name before, James Ehlers. He's also running for house from Winooski and he's previously run for governor as well. Wow. A big slate of candidates. Right. And it'd be really interesting to see, you know, does the top of the ticket, when folks are voting president, do they just keep going with that party or not? Right. I think that's going to be kind of interesting to see as well. Will the presidential coattails impact the races or will the governor's coattails impact these down-ballot races? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot to digest. It's a historic day and certainly an historic evening. On tap for us here at Town Meeting Television, we invite you to join us for all the results, beginning at 7.30, right here at ch17.tv. We also have our broadcast partners. If you're heading out at any time during the evening, you're invited to tune in on your car radio to 99.3 FM WBTVLP, your community, your radio. And we also welcome Seven Days and Vermont Digger to our stream. Well, Diane, that does it for us pretty quick and short live at 5.25 preview show. Absolutely. And we're going to do more later. Join us at 7.30. Yes. We look forward to you joining us then for all of us at Town Meeting Television. We'll see you at 7.30. Hi, everyone. My name is Enrique Balcasa. I'm part of the Migrant Justice. Migrant Justice is a dairy farm worker organization based here in Vermont. Our mission is to build a voice, capacity, and power of farm workers to fight for human rights and economic justice. Four years ago, CCTV given us a great space that allowed us to do the first Spanish program for farm workers in Vermont. Our program calls Nadando Contra la Corriente. It's a big step for us because that allowed that people around the state are learning about migrant justice and learning about campaigns that we are doing the next steps of campaigns and how the people, how they can get involved. Also, listen about the events like fiesta, soccer tournament, and regional assemblies that we are doing for farm workers to be together and create a community. Thank you to CCTV Channel and CCTV team for that great opportunity. Thank you.