
This is a screenshot from the ballot in Berkshire, Vermont, a small, rural community in Franklin County near the Canadian border. There are a total of six candidates listed for six openings for Justice of the Peace so, absenting a vigorous write-in campaign, all six are going to win.
And that’s a damn shame for the good folks of Berkshire, because the last name on the list should be familiar for some unpleasant reasons. Republican nominee Ryan Roy has a past that would make him appear uniquely unqualified for any position that involves “justice” or “peace.”
*UPDATE. Roy appears on the Secretary of State’s 2023-24 list of Justices of the Peace for Berkshire, so apparently he’s running for… re-election? I’m seeking confirmation of 2022 election results. If he’s a sitting J.P., this is even worse.
Roy has received extensive coverage in the press for, among other things, being identified as a member of the neo-Nazi Patriot Front and having been an active participant in the infamous 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Here he is holding a torch and lookin’ big mad in a Vice News documentary about the rally.

Yeah, well, okay then. Justice of the Peace, got it.
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