Vermont's Gores

As we map election results, there are areas of the Vermont town and city returns map which don't "light up" with the color of a winner. This is because these nine areas aren't incorporated or otherwise organized with a municipal government, in most cases because the specific area has only a very small or no population. Generally, we refer to these as "gores."

A "gore" is a term in land law and surveying regarding triangular or tapering strips of land left out between surveys. Gores were usually the result of surveying errors when the land was first surveyed or granted, resulting in odd remnant tracts. These may also be referred to as a 'grant' or 'purchase,' and generally refer to unincorporated areas of a county that aren't part of any town, and thus have limited or no self-government. They likewise have a small or nonexistent population.

Included in this map are also unorganized and never organized areas and grants, which are shaped differently but are otherwise similar to gores for the purposes of vote reporting.

Naming conventions for these areas are interesting too; according to many sources, usually the recording of these tracts in volumes of "State Papers of Vermont" list the names with an 'apostrophe-s,' as in "Avery's Gore," but the U.S. Board on Geographic Names does not use the possessive form with an apostrophe to avoid the implication of personal possession of these properties. We have used that standard here, so "Avery's Gore" is shown as "Averys Gore," and so on. The nomenclature for this map's dataset further uses "Warren Gore" rather than "Warrens" or "Warren's," all three of which are used in various reference material.

To say the unorganized towns and gores are completely without "government" is not perfectly accurate; for instance in Essex County, Averill, Averys Gore, Ferdinand, Lewis, Warners Grant and Warren Gore are all overseen by the Unified Towns and Gores of Essex County.
Chart: WCAX StaffGet the data