WOODSTOCK — Three Democrats and one Republican have filed to run for Windsor County sheriff, according to a candidate listing on the Vermont Secretary of State’s website.
Sheriff Ryan Palmer, who ran as a Democrat and was elected to a four-year term in 2022, is not among them.
The deadline to file for the 2026 race was last Thursday, May 28.
Efforts to reach Palmer, who was arrested in late January and is currently facing 12 felony and misdemeanor charges of sexual misconduct, were not immediately successful on Tuesday.
Since his arrest, Palmer, a 39-year-old Windsor resident, has delegated management of the department’s town patrols, civil process, court security and other day-to-day operations to Chief Deputy Claude Weyant, a 70-year-old Windsor resident, who is one of the three Democratic candidates for the Aug. 11 primary.
The other two Democratic candidates are Christopher Norton, a 50-year-old sergeant with the Windham County Sheriff’s Department who lives in Springfield, Vt., and Joshua Lake, a 30-year-old patrolman with the Bellows Falls Police Department who lives in Chester, Vt.
The winner of the Democratic primary in August will face Republican Richard King, a 63-year-old lieutenant in the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department who lives in Springfield, in November’s general election.
King is the sole Republican to file for the seat.
For high bailiff, which Weyant had been elected to in 2024, only one candidate is running: Hudson Ranney, a 19-year-old Democrat and Windsor High School graduate who is currently studying political science at Brandeis University.
The high bailiff serves within the department to provide oversight of the sheriff, and in case of vacancy in the office, “the functions of the sheriff shall be exercised by the high bailiff,” according to Vermont statutes.
In the wake of financial and sexual misconduct controversies surrounding the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department, each of the candidates promise integrity, oversight and transparency in their platforms.
Palmer is currently facing 12 felony and misdemeanor charges which allege that he engaged in a pattern of predatory behavior from 2024 through 2026 involving multiple victims, payments for sex acts, encouragement to lie to investigators and stalking of the victims’ homes and workplaces.
In 2022, after winning the Democratic primary against Tom Battista, a longtime veteran of the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department, Palmer defeated Michael Chamberlain, a Republican who had run the department for roughly 40 years.
Palmer ran on a platform of developing the department into a regional law enforcement agency that could provide policing services to towns too small to have their own police force.
The department currently provides patrols to over a dozen towns in both Windsor and Orange counties.
Palmer’s next court date is a status conference scheduled for June 26 at 2:30 p.m. in Rutland Superior Court.
Two Democrats, Sean McRea of Bethel and Michael Tkac of Corinth, and a Republican, Jacob Held of Washington, Vt., are running for the neighboring Orange County sheriff seat, which is currently held by George Contois, a Democrat, who is not seeking reelection.
