When Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham) read off the Vermont election vote totals during a joint session of the House and Senate on Thursday morning, something didn’t sound right.

Liberty Union candidate Boots Wardinski surely didn’t get 69,000 votes, thought Rep. Kurt Wright (R-Burlington) as he heard the number.

Indeed, Wardinski tallied just 7,038 votes — but legislators had come within a whisker of certifying the wrong numbers.

“It’s actually pretty serious,” Wright said as the legislature’s canvassing committee reconvened to figure out what went wrong.

When the Vermont House convenes Wednesday morning for the 2017 legislative session, Rep. Robin Chesnut-Tangerman (P-Middletown Springs) plans to rise and make a rare objection.

He will argue that Bob Frenier, the Republican candidate from Chelsea who won an Orange County House seat by six votes, should not be sworn in. Frenier, says Chesnut-Tangerman, should not be seated until a legal dispute to the election is settled.

Susan Hatch Davis, a 10-year Progressive representative from the town of Washington, has challenged the vote-counting process after she came up short in her reelection bid.

Hatch Davis cited a rarely used state statute. She petitioned the Secretary of State’s Office, which, by law, triggers an investigation and report by the Attorney General’s Office. A House committee will then consider that report and decide whether to grant Hatch Davis a new recount.

Mike Pieciak, who helped lead the state’s investigation of Northeast Kingdom development projects funded through the federal EB-5 immigration program, will keep his job under the next governor.

Governor-elect Phil Scott announced Pieciak’s appointment Tuesday as commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation. Pieciak’s four deputy commissioners will also stay on, Scott announced.

Scott credited Pieciak’s work in investigating the controversial EB-5 projects, which generated civil federal charges against developers Ariel Quiros and Bill Stenger.

“Michael has demonstrated a strong commitment to protecting Vermonters’ financial security — especially throughout the EB-5 investigation — while also thinking outside the box to help foster entrepreneurship by modernizing systems to help Vermont meet the demands of a new marketplace,” Scott said in a press release.

Departing Gov. Peter Shumlin had just promoted Pieciak to commissioner in July after Susan Donegan left state government. In 2012, Pieciak, a lawyer who grew up in Brattleboro and lives in Winooski, served as campaign manager for Democratic Attorney General Bill Sorrell.

Scott, a Republican, opted to keep Pieciak along with deputy commissioners overseeing specific areas: Cynthia Stuart for banking, Kaj Samsom for insurance, William Carrigan for securities and David Provost for captive insurance.

Ever since Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) has positioned himself as a conciliator willing to work across the aisle to find common ground. That approach has sometimes elicited criticism from Vermont liberals (remember ACORN?), who want their representatives to stand a little taller for their views.

Like, say, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

But Welch believes he has served his constituents by seeking areas of agreement with Republicans. As a member of the minority, he told Seven Days this week, “I needed Republicans to get anything done.” But, he added, “To some extent they also needed me. They needed some Democratic validation to get a bill signed by President Obama.”

Not anymore.

“It’s a totally new world with Donald Trump,” he noted. In response to the Republican firebrand’s election, Welch is trying to “come to some judgments about what’s a practical way for me to represent Vermont.”

Republican Bob Frenier outlasted Rep. Susan Hatch Davis (P-Washington) in the race for an Orange County House seat after a judge on Monday declared him the winner.

It’s the final recount of the 2016 Vermont elections — but it might not be over just yet. Davis said significant questions remain about the vote-counting process and said she plans to take her case to the legislature. She was scouring state law Monday evening to figure out how next to proceed.

Frenier won on Election Day by eight votes. After an initial recount using a tabulator machine, Frenier’s lead shrank to six votes. Davis petitioned the court for a second recount, this one by hand.

Normally, when the three Vermont members of the electoral college convene to formally cast the state’s votes for president and vice president, no one comes to watch.

This year was different. Some 200 protesters jammed the Statehouse meeting room hoping to make this pro forma ritual anything but. Across the country, protesters hoped a revolt by electors in each state would keep president-elect Donald Trump from taking office.

“One person, one vote,” they chanted, protesting the concept of the electoral college. “Dump Trump,” some of the signs read.

Governor-elect Phil Scott named former Burlington police chief Mike Schirling his commerce secretary and tapped central Vermont small business owner Lindsay Kurrle to lead the Department of Labor.

Scott made the announcements Friday afternoon as he slowly fills cabinet positions ahead of his January 5 inauguration.

Schirling, who retired from the police force in 2015, has been executive director of the economic development and technology nonprofit organization BTV Ignite for a little more than a year.

Scott cited Schirling’s innovation and leadership experience in hiring him to run an agency that will be under particular pressure to produce results. Scott campaigned on a promise of generating economic growth.

This post was updated at 3:15 p.m.

Governor-elect Phil Scott announced Tuesday that he has chosen a former Douglas administration employee to run the Agency of Natural Resources and a former federal prosecutor who served under Republican president George W. Bush to lead his Public Safety Department.

Julie Moore, who worked six years on Lake Champlain cleanup efforts under former Republican governor Jim Douglas, will serve as Scott’s ANR secretary at a time when the lake is very much at the top of the agency’s agenda.

When Scott takes office in January, the Republican governor is expected to wrangle with the Democratic-controlled legislature over how to pay for phosphorous reduction efforts in the lake. The state and federal governments this year finalized an agreement on goals the state must meet to reduce phosphorous during the next 20 years. Scott has said he will not support raising new revenues to meet the goals, but lawmakers are expected to push him on the issue.

Governor-elect Phil Scott didn’t support — and has said he didn’t vote for — Donald Trump for president. But now that the two Republicans are about to take office, what kind of relationship will Vermont’s next governor have with the next president?

Scott offered some hints at a press conference Monday at his Montpelier transition office. He seemed loath to tick off the top dog, yet promised to be an “independent voice.”

Vermonters should not expect to hear Scott to raise that independent voice either for or against Trump’s staffing picks. Scott declined to characterize any of Trump’s choices so far as good or bad.

“Most of the people he’s appointed I’ve never heard of,” Scott said. “There’s not anyone in particular that I’ve thought anything about.”

Scott said he’s been focused largely on his own administration’s hiring blitz and writing a state budget that’s due two weeks after he takes office. He’s announced just two cabinet members so far and said he expects to name more on Tuesday.

Scott made several statements that indicated he’s not inclined to speak out against Trump in these early transition days. “I’m not looking to poke my finger in the eye of the president-elect,” he said, commenting that he’s “over” being distressed about Trump’s actions.

But Scott indicated he will stand up to Trump “when it’s appropriate.” That time, he said, is “when Vermont is vulnerable.”

Scott, who takes office January 5, could find Vermont in conflict with the Trump administration on any number of issues — including immigration.

The president-elect has pledged to cut federal funding to localities that become “sanctuary” cities for undocumented immigrants.

Several Vermont cities, including Burlington and Winooski, are considering establishing themselves as sanctuary cities that would not help federal authorities pursue undocumented immigrants. Scott said he supports their right to do that.

Scott said he doesn’t have plans to make significant changes in state policy on the issue. Under departing Gov. Peter Shumlin, Vermont enacted a policy directing state police not to report undocumented immigrants with whom they come into contact to federal officials.

Scott said Monday that he and his staff have not discussed that policy, even as he prepared to appoint a public safety commissioner. But he said, “I don’t expect to do anything dramatic.” He added that revoking Shumlin’s policy would qualify as dramatic.

When it comes to Trump’s threat to withhold federal funds, Scott seemed less firm. “I think we have to make sure we’re keeping that in mind,” he said. “We rely heavily on federal funding.”

Scott also said he also supports the concept behind Shumlin’s decision last week to pardon those convicted of possession of up to one ounce of marijuana before that offense was decriminalized in 2013. But the new gov is worried that the old one will stick him with the work.

Shumlin announced Thursday that he was offering pardons to as many as 17,000 Vermonters. He gave them a Christmas Day deadline to apply — just 12 days before Shumlin leaves office.

Scott said his staff reached out to Shumlin’s to emphasize he hopes the pardoning will be done before Shumlin leaves.

“It’s not an easy process,” Scott said. “My hope is he will be able to fill his responsibility.”

Shumlin spokesman Scott Coriell said that’s the plan. “It’s a priority of ours,” he said. As of Monday morning, 250 people had applied for pardons.

In less than a month, Sen. David Zuckerman (P/D-Chittenden) will become the highest-ranking state official from both the Progressive and Democratic parties. That’s when the outgoing Chittenden County state senator and Hinesburg organic farmer takes office as lieutenant governor, succeeding Republican governor-elect Phil Scott.

It’s an ideal bully pulpit for the 45-year-old pol — offering high visibility and little responsibility. During his six-year tenure, Scott used it to great advantage, building his reputation while avoiding controversy. How will the new guy handle the job?