You've heard of email and snail mail, but how about pink mail. That's an inter-office system in state government that uses pink envelopes.

It seems that Rep. Rachel Weston, D-Burlington, put her letter requesting inclusion on the list of legislative candidates for University of Vermont trustees in pink mail at the Statehouse on Tuesday -- sure that it would travel down State Street and up the hill to the office of the Secretary of State by the 5 p.m. Thursday deadline. It didn't. It arrived Friday morning.

As a result, Weston's name isn't among the candidates listed on the ballot that will be handed out to the House and Senate Thursday when they choose three new legislative trustees. Ouch! She's not the only lawmaker whose paperwork didn't arrive on time. Rep. Carolyn Branagan, R-Georgia, also missed out.

The names of four other lawmakers will be printed on the ballots: Rep. Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor, Rep. Mary Peterson, D-Williston, Rep. Harry Chen, D-Mendon and Sen. Jeannette White, D-Windham. Peterson said Chen carried their letters to the Secretary of State's office and handed them to the staff. Smart.

David Crossman on the election staff at the Secretary of State's office stayed late Thursday waiting for last-minute letters. Friday, when Weston's and Branagan's arrived, he said them too late. "A deadline is a deadline."

Weston chalks this up to a freshman mistake. She is serving her first term in the Legislature and is still learning the ways things operate.

"I'm still running," she said Friday, despite her disappointment. Both she and Branagan can run as write-in candidates.

Guess we won't be able to say if pink mail cost either candidate the election, but it certainly didn't make running any easier.

--Nancy Remsen