 I mean like I didn't grow up here but like having a high school that doesn't have asbestos falling apart is important. I know it's expensive but I feel like it's worth it in the long run because that's people's education. I'm out here because I think it's really important for our community that we have a fully functioning high school and Macy's has been a great stop gap in the meantime but it's not a long term solution. It's critical. We don't have a thriving community without a thriving high school and being in Macy's is fantastic. It's an incredible lift that we did that was an incredible success but it's temporary. Definitely build the high school. It's very important. It's going to bring a lot of jobs. It's going to bring a lot of teachers. It's going to bring a lot of everything to our land in Burlington. I'm definitely the high school one. I'm native of Burlington and I went to Burlington High School myself. And I think that the city deserves a high school and a function in high school. So definitely be voting for it for sure. Like the kids at BHS need a high school because there's this full of asbestos and they're going to school in the mall and I think they should have a high school. Yes, especially for me the high school one feels I'm a retired educator and I just think that's so important for a community. It's the least a community can do for their children. I'm two middle school students and I would like to see a high school built so anything it takes. The development of a new high school was very important to me. The kids who have had to go to high school in the last few years have gone to something that isn't appropriate for them and this city is wealthy enough to be able to support a really good school. Yeah I think the new high school is very important. I voted for it. I don't have a lot of money but we have to have a high school. My kids both had to go to school at the Macy's. Not ideal. They're not going to benefit from the new high school but I want the future generations to have a real high school. Yeah, so I played hockey with a few kids who have gone to school in that high school and I've heard some of their thoughts so it's an interesting, I don't have kids myself so it's interesting to hear. I definitely think we need a new high school. Seems like it's going to be expensive but I think that's just, I think it's always going to be expensive so it's just the price we pay. I voted for it. We need a high school. What kind of a community would it be if we didn't have a high school for the children of our community? Yeah, definitely that's what brought me out today to vote for the new high school. In favor. I love education. We should definitely, the kids need a place to learn. I've got a one year old. He's going to need a place to learn so vote yes for the school. I think we really do need to buy like a really good, expensive, furnished high school that will last like 100 or even 200 years but what are your thoughts? Yeah, no I think the buildings are very important. It's also very much about the experiences that are going on and not just in those buildings but especially high school students getting them out in the community like you're doing right now is really, really important. So while the facilities are important, it's the experiences that are the most important and getting out in the community is, there's no substitute for that. So what you're doing is fundamental for education. Good evening. I'm Jordan Butterfield here with Christine Lott and we're here to do the general election preview show. We're doing the election results show tonight at 7.30 but for now we're going to give you a little sneak preview. You can watch us on channel17.tv. You can watch us on our channels at Comcast 1087, Broads and Telecom 217 and 317. Also want to thank our other Van Public Access partners. Orca Media is helping us out with the Republican Party. Media Factory gave some technical support and we're going to be checking in with Jeanette and MMCTV. BCTV is also airing our program this evening. Big night, Christine. It is. Well, we just heard exit voices from folks in Burlington. Lot of support for that big bond project for the high school so that's interesting. We have at the state level a lot of interesting races as well. You know, a third of the state Senate has turned over in the house. Half of the committee leaders will be new this session. So we could see a lot of new voices, potentially new priorities. This could be a really different biennium than we have seen in the last two years. Yeah. And the national election, also big news. We're going to be hearing a bit about that from some analysts later on in the night. They'll be joining Jordan Mitchell via Zoom. We'll be watching the big Senate and Congress races. Yeah, that's a really interesting one too, right? Potentially. First time Vermont sends a woman to Congress. Definitely state never to have done so. Could see Welch elevating to that Senate seat that Leahy has been in for longer than I've been alive. Yep. Yep. Definitely longer than I've been alive too. Also want to thank our exit voices, folks that went out this morning. It was a cold morning cooler than we expected, but had a lot of people who went out and did that. Thanks to Bobby, Emily, Navarro, Travis, Kate, and Scott for going out there. We'll be checking in with a few of those other folks at the parties later on in the evening. I saw a lot of candidates out at the polls near me today. Definitely shivering out there. Yes. It was great to see folks making the rounds. Again, there's so many new people running. It's another opportunity to connect with voters. We had also in Winooski, I think we're on track for a record turnout for this election. A couple of hours ago, we were already at 50% of registered voters had been in or voted by mail. Yeah. And I think, was this the first election that vote by mail was across the board? You had to request a ballot before, right, during the pandemic? Yes. But they did deliver them this year directly to everyone's household. Yep. So it'd be interesting to see as we watch election results coming through, seeing how those vote totals come out. Let's look at our election page real quick to just show folks what that's going to look like. We have, as usual, our election results webpage in which you'll be able to check throughout the night to see results as they come through. No votes coming in yet, as the clerks have not been reporting, the polls haven't closed yet, but this is the way it'll look. You'll be able to check in and see all of our local Chittenden County races, statewide races. You'll be able to check out the Secretary of State's website. We'll be looking at that as well tonight. Good reminder, if you haven't voted yet, polls are open until 7 p.m. Go to your local polling place if you have not already. Make sure you do that. Yep. Still plenty of time left. If you are in the Chittenden Solid Waste District area as well, there is a separate bond item. I wanted to vote on that today as it was not included in the mail-in ballot. I know we even heard some people went to vote and then came back later and said, oh, I didn't know. I didn't know about the CSWD vote. I got to come back and do that one as well. Yeah. I'm hoping for a great turnout across the board. We also have those ballot items at the state level, Prop 2 and Prop 5, that are I think likely to pass, but it will be interesting to see what the turnout is there too. It's to remove language around slavery and to protect reproductive liberty for our state. We had a lot of people, had a lot of thoughts about Prop 2 and Prop 5 in our Exit Voices team, which we'll check in with later in the night. But for now, let's go to the Democratic Party. The parties are finally back in person. We had a few years of Zoom parties and that kind of thing, but now we get to send teams back to these party events. So the Democratic Party is at Hula in Burlington. We'll check in with the Republicans in a little bit. But for right now, let's see what they're doing at the Democrats. Thank you so much, Jordan and Christine. Bobby and I are excited to be here at the Democratic Party at Hula in Burlington. We're going to be bringing you speeches from candidates as well as interviews from candidates and other exciting figures from the Democratic Spear in Chittenden County. That's right, Emily. We're going to a couple of folks that we're really excited to chat with tonight and hear more from. So we hope to interview folks up and down the ballot tonight and hope to have more for you soon. Well, Bobby and I can't wait. And back to you, Studio A. Thanks, Bobby and Emily, looking good there, looking forward to hearing some more stuff from folks over at the Democratic Party. And we'll check in with the Republicans in a little bit. But for now, this is also a big year for redistricting. Yeah, that's another factor, you know, not just a lot of turnover, new faces, voices coming to the table, but redistricting, breaking up the sort of block in Chittenden County impactful for reps in state Senate, I think particularly the state Senate. You know, we're going from having six senators for all of Chittenden County, something like 160,000 people to having three districts. The narrowing the scope of folks that they have to represent and potentially changing the makeup as well. Yeah, it's changing a lot of these districts into more rural districts than the old Chittenden County Senate district used to be, you know, the new Chittenden North District and the Chittenden Southeast District, a lot more rural voters and it's not as centralized and urban voice as it used to be. So it's changed the makeup. Yeah. That'll change or that already has changed the constituents that these folks are talking to, you know, for some of our incumbents, they've got to sort of shift what they're prioritizing and how they're meeting in the middle for the folks they're representing. You know, I think there was previously a sentiment in the state house about the Chittenden County Senate delegation being like urban, Burlington dominated and I think there's an opportunity here to say like this is more representative or more diverse representation. Could change how those folks interact in the party politics, as it were. Right. In Winooski, did you see any change in the way Senate candidates were interacting? I definitely did. So Chittenden Central, much smaller district, all of Winooski, part of Burlington, Essex Junction and I saw all those candidates come, you know, come to events in Winooski more than once. I think that's more than I have ever seen in the past and I think that's a testament to having a smaller base to represent. You're able to spend more time and really get to know your constituents a little bit better. Right. And in that Chittenden Central district we're likely to see some new senators coming in. Two state senators retired, Chris Pearson and Michael Sorokin, both had served for quite some time. Yep. Not seeking reelection. So in Chittenden Central we had Phil Baruth, the incumbent, running again and then three new candidates running for those remaining two seats. That Chittenden Central district has three seats. Yeah. So Phil Baruth, you know, he's stuck around for a while. We have Tanya Vajovski from Essex Select Board, Martine LeRogulik from the Burlington School Board and Infinite Colleclizia who had previously ran for mayor in Burlington. So I think they all have some name recognition in their respective areas. It was good to see them out in Winooski though, letting my residents know who they are. It'll be interesting to see who wins this one. You know, does our incumbent go on, what does the makeup of the rest of the group look like? Right. And Phil Baruth, the incumbent, if he does win reelection he's likely to become the president pro tempore of the Senate. That's what people think. So that's a big vote there. Could be a big deal too. He's a Burlington resident. Speaker of the House Jill Kerouzski is too in the region. So still some Chittenden dominance there potentially, but I know I've spoken with most of these folks and they're really there to represent everyone. We can also talk about Chittenden North. Chittenden North is the smallest new state Senate district. It's just one seat. It'll send somebody new to the state Senate. It'll be either Irene Renner, the Democrat, or Leland Morgan, the Republican. Interesting race there that people are keeping a close eye on. Yeah. Irene, coming from, gosh, is she, she's Fairfax, right? She's in Essex. Essex, Essex, my mistake, sorry. Coming from Essex, she's served there, Leland and Grand Isle County. And so they already have bases in this newly formed district. One more urban, one more rural. It'll be interesting to see who takes the lead there. This is potentially an area where a Republican could take a seat formally represented by a Democrat. That whole district actually has spread more north into the islands and so is creating more of a rural focus than previously. And same thing with the Chittenden Southeast seat. Three incumbents there. Three incumbents there, yeah. Ginny Lyons, long time in the Senate, Thomas Chittenden and Keisha Rumhinsdale, with two challengers, Dean Rowland and Rowan St. Mart. If either of them unseat three of these other sort of big names, I think that'll be, that'll be something to be talked about. As mentioned before, you know, for Lyons, Rumhinsdale and Chittenden, they are going to have to spread their focus now more into those rural areas and figure out what it is that everyone in this new district is really going to benefit by. Right. The most urban town that that covers really South Burlington and the rest of them are much more rural. Yeah. So it changes things up a lot. Yeah. And they were, you know, previously also focusing on Burlington and Winniesky and areas like that. So definitely a different focus for those folks. They live in the district though, so they're familiar at least. Lot of changes coming though. Yeah. Lot of turnover. I mean, even, you know, a lot of representatives retired. There are a lot of unopposed like new state representatives that are coming in and we'll talk about that throughout the night as well. I would say a lot of independents too have shown up and harder to track because they're not on the ballot. But Ryden, I've seen quite a few Ryden candidates pop up as well. So there's just, there's a lot of factors out there. It's going to be really hard to decipher who's going to come out in the leadership starting tomorrow. Yeah. That's right. We have, in addition to, we talked a little bit about the Burlington High School bond. I mentioned the Chittin and Solid Waste District bond for the recycling facility expansion and upgrades. There's also a communications union district for South Burlington, Williston, Essex and Westford. So a couple of things besides the candidates to think about for voters this evening. I was impressed to see on that Burlington High School those exit voices, a lot of support there from the community for a learning facility to support kids in Burlington. It's probably the largest school bond vote if it passes that historically will have passed. That's right. Yeah. In the last couple of years, a significant bond proposed in South Burlington that voters did not support. But school construction is something that has been on the table for the last couple of years. We had a bond vote in Winooski a couple of years ago and we're about to finish that project. That was also a big one for us. So a lot of need for that throughout the state really. Yeah. This is a question that a lot of towns are going to be dealing with for a while. There's been a moratorium on school construction aid from the state and so it's up to municipalities to towns to figure out how they're going to finance this and make sure that they're keeping their facilities up to date. Right. Yeah. Well, let's visit the Republicans and take a quick look over there. See what it looks like. They are in Barrie at the Elks Lodge. They'll be joining us later on in the evening with some interviews. Right now we'll take a look at, we'll take a look at this. Yeah. There's the space. Yeah. I know. This looks like. Oh, that looks like Hula. Yeah. That looks like Hula. There's the Elks Lodge. There's the GOP. That'll be in Barrie. We'll also look at the progressive party later as well. Hopefully get some interviews back from them. That's happening at RERAWS. So that's going to be a, that'll be interesting. Oh, fun. Yeah. So that's at the polls when I left this morning on clearly on the Democratic side because they were talking about Hula. They sounded really excited to be back in person to celebrate or, you know, just be in community with each other after this election. So I'm sure there'll be enough, a good turnout at these events to get some interviews going later on. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm looking forward to hearing from them. Yeah. We have state representatives to watch tonight too on the ballot. There is some challenges there and also quite a few unopposed races, which is interesting. And we'll be checking in throughout the night for that. You know, Chittenden County is a large district. So there's a lot of representatives on the ballot. You can check that out on our election page. Let's take a look at that real quick. You can always, we'll be doing this throughout the night. Polls close at seven. So you still have time to go out and vote before that closes. But as that comes, we will have our very busy election results room in here, collecting results from all the clerks. This is one of the first places you can check out. We will have Chittenden County results. If you're looking for statewide results, you can go to the Secretary of State's website. We'll be checking that as well to get information on the governor, Congress, the candidate, that kind of thing. Yeah. So there's also a number of statewide offices, right? We've got Governor Scott up for reelection, challenged Brenda Seigl on the Democratic side, but a couple of other folks in that pool as well. And on the Lieutenant Governor side, we have David Zuckerman returning, vying for that seat again. It'll be interesting to see if we go back to Scott Zuckerman administration or if there's Joe Benning in that seat or Ian Diamonstone. Right. Yeah. I know Joe Benning was challenging Zuckerman saying, is this a springboard to high office or I'm going to stay here? But I heard I did some editing for the exit voices, a lot of support for David Zuckerman. So it'll be interesting to see that one. That's something that people have been watching. So and that's a talking point that I recall from the primaries with the Lieutenant Governor seat. There's a number of people running, talking about it's a seat that can sometimes be thought of as ceremonial versus really an implementer of any sort of policy. And so what will the person in that seat do with that title when they get there? And I know there's been discussion about this for a long time about what more could the Lieutenant Governor's office be. Some of the different things that could be done. Yeah. I think there's room for changes there but we'll see. Time will tell. Few other state offices up, the state's attorney for Chittenden County, Sarah George, no challengers, the state auditor and secretary of state both seeing departures of folks who've been in there for a long time. Yeah. Retired long time folks. Secretary of state, Beth Pierce, state treasurer and then T.D. Donovan leaving for a job at Roblox. Yeah so significant changes across the board. Lots of changes. Lots of new people. Yeah. So speaking of the exit voices earlier on, let's check in with some student interns that they polled UVM students on voting, Luke, Harrison, Tabitha, Brooke and Eric helped us out. So let's take a look at what they what they saw today. I already voted absentee. I voted absentee for Connecticut. I was going to vote absentee but I forgot so I'm going to vote tomorrow. I actually already voted online for my state, yeah, or not online in mail. I think it's important to vote because without voting then government is pointless. I think it's important to vote especially as a young person it's important to like stay informed about what's going on and make our voices heard and our opinions heard on what should happen by casting a vote. There's a few ballot measures in Connecticut and that's very important to me. A lot of the races aren't close but a lot of the ballot measures are important to me, like are we voting? So we want to support that. It's our democracy and it's how we can make our voice heard in general and while some people believe it doesn't make that much of an impact, it may not make a global impact at times. It makes a very large impact in our general community and general facility like your town or your state. Vermont has a bunch of propositions on the ballot like the article 22 and I don't know what it's called but changing, amending the constitution to get rid of the slavery clause. It's also Vermont is not a close race it's very solid blue but I think it's important to like secure progressive candidates in Vermont so yeah. I mean more specifically this year for like abortion rights and everything that is like affecting me personally as a woman. I think it's important to vote because everybody's voice matters and if you think that it doesn't then if everybody thinks that then nothing's going to get done. And you're speaking for the people who don't have a voice. Just to make sure I'm involved in the community making sure the changes are happening. It's really not that hard and you just check in some boxes and if you have a politically aligned friend they'll be happy to guide you through everything. I mean ultimately it's their decision whether they want to vote or not but it's not very hard to vote so I don't understand why you wouldn't do it. If you don't vote I like what the other guy said you can't complain it's your one chance to kind of put your input to the government so if you don't do it then it's too bad for you. Lots of well informed UVM students. Definitely yeah it was great to hear them talking about the proposals. You know one of the national narratives is potentially reproductive rights being a driver for high turnout. So here in Vermont we have a potential constitutional amendment in Prop 5 to strengthen that protection for Vermonters. Something that clearly our legislature saw the writing on the wall about the Supreme Court's actions that happened this year. So we have the language up here. You know the proponents here's a way to strengthen our protections here in Vermont. Opposition I think what I've heard is an ambiguity of language or concern. I know I heard about this from folks on both sides of the aisle being supportive of this so I feel confident that this one will pass. I know we are not the only state that's looking at a proposal like this. In Michigan are also looking at similar proposals so this is something that also having some national attention to see is Vermont one of the states who's going to enshrine this in our constitution. Yeah and was it Kansas or Oklahoma? They did something earlier this year and saw a massive turnout in support of trying to make those protections. And then the Second Amendment Proposal 2 removing language related to slavery from the Constitution so there's some language in there that specifically refers to basically indentured servitude which I think a lot of us were probably surprised to find that this still exists in the Vermont state constitution. I mean Vermont prides itself as being the first state to abolish slavery in the Union we still have it in our constitution. And so here's an opportunity here's our state government saying words matter we want to remove this and you know further strengthen that position that we're you know we want to address the past that we have but make sure that we are making sure that that doesn't happen again. And you know we saw through exit voices we saw a lot of support for these proposals we saw a lot of people who are very passionately against Prop 5 too and we'll be checking in with that on our election night results show later tonight so it'll be interesting to hear more from the public. I'm excited to see how the votes turn out on all of these issues. If you haven't voted yet remember you have until 7 p.m. so they're still an hour. Even if you get there right before the door closes if you're in line you will still have an opportunity to vote. That's right and before we wrap up let's we can touch on that big national race that people have been talking about. I know a lot of the public when we asked them what candidates are you looking at a lot of people were saying you know Beck and Ballant Peter Welch or you know Eric Heretic Gerald Malloy some of these top ticket folks at the U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress races. Yeah so you've got you know Welch making potentially the move from being our state representative for the last I don't know 10 plus years into that open Senate seat you know here's a guy who's he's been around a long time he's familiar and then you have Joe Malloy coming in sort of a new face I would say even in the Republican Party so that's a real interesting matchup. And just got a Trump endorsement recently within the last week which was controversial. Yeah and then it's actually a fuller field than that those are the two names that I've seen a lot here we have the the full array of candidates for U.S. Senator in in Vermont. Coaster Natasha Diamondstone co-hout Steven Duke Don Marie Ellis Carrie Patrick Rahab and Chris Erickson also running for that U.S. Senate seat. And so Welch's seat in the House of Representatives being opened up you know there was quite the quite the primary for that. We have Beck and Ballant coming from our state House from being Senate Pro Tem and then additionally we have Liam Madden running again kind of a newcomer. Right yeah running us avowed independent running in the Republican primary to get to get eyes on his campaign and winning the primary. Yeah so that was kind of surprising to see on the you know you've gotten established Republican and they selected an avowed independent to take that seat. So we'll see how that plays out as far as write ins and votes and things of that nature. One of his challenges in the primary Eric Erick still running and running on the libertarian ticket. Eric Liam Madden also had some hot water recently for some of the campaign finance questions yeah. Does require a little bit of education if you put yourself out there for public office. Yes yes it does yes we got some other folks that are running for that representative to Congress as well Matt Druzeba Adam Ortiz and Luke Talbot. We had some of those folks on a forum with Beck and Ballant in the last month so you can check that out on our website if you're interested. Once again there's still time to go out to the polls and still time to learn more about these candidates. I'm really looking forward to watching the results come in tonight. Yes yes so am I. And reminder even if you did your vote by mail there's a chitin and solid waste district ballot bond item that was not included there that you'll want to go to the polls to take care of that. Reminder we do this is just our preview show our election night our full election night results show will be coming later on in the evening at 7.30 we'll be with you for two and a half hours so it's going to be a nice long night we'll be checking in and seeing how things shake up if you want to watch us. You can watch us at channel 17.tv. You can also check out our YouTube channel and you can watch us on cable.com cast 87 brolin's and telecom 217 and brolin's and telecom 317 really looking forward to this local access coverage of the elections that matter to me and all of my neighbors and you folks out there watching. We'll also have Republicans progressives Democrats well you know we'll have updates from around the state and the nation throughout the night with Studio Z Jordan Mitchell is going to be checking in with analysts throughout the night that we'll be bringing in to give some reactions and just some some ideas about what thing what's going on Nick Chedley Carter who is someone I think we've seen here before for a long time has some national updates as well because a lot of folks are looking at the national elections to see what that's going to look like. Huge night nationally too even beyond our borders. Yep and so thank you for joining us. Make sure you get out there to vote and we will see you later tonight. All right thanks everybody.