ADDISON COUNTY — While incumbents and challengers waged hard-fought races for Vermont House seats in Middlebury, the Bristol area, Vergennes area and the Bridport/Weybridge/New Haven district, some local elections were not contested.
Rep. Willem Jewett, a Ripton Democrat who has represented Addison-2 in the Vermont House for six terms, was unopposed in a district that includes the towns of Cornwall, Goshen, Hancock, Leicester, Ripton and Salisbury. Jewett, who said he will not run for re-election by his Democratic peers to be House Majority Leader, won re-election Tuesday with 900 votes out of 911 cast in an un-contested race, according to the Vermont Secretary of State’s office.
In the Addison-Rutland House district, newcomer Alyson Eastman of Orwell won election for the seat that had been held for six years by Shoreham Independent Will Stevens, who chose not to run for re-election. Eastman, an Independent, won 971 votes in the four-town district, with nine write-in voters for others. Her tallies in those towns were: Orwell 361, Shoreham 331, Whiting 90, and Benson 189.
Incumbent state Sens. Claire Ayer, D-Addison, and Christopher Bray, D-New Haven, had no challengers this year in the district that encompasses Addison County, Huntington and Buel’s Gore. With results from a few towns missing on Wednesday, Ayer garnered 10,023 votes, and Bray got 8,693.
All of the other county elections, were unopposed. Winning re-election to these countywide offices were:
•  Probate Judge Eleanor “Misse” Smith of Cornwall.
•  State’s Attorney David R. Fenster of Weybridge.
•  Assistant Judges Alice George of Middlebury and Irene Poole of Ripton.