Updated on December 2, 2019.
A group of Progressive Burlington city councilors wants to resurrect ranked-choice voting, a controversial election method that Queen City voters repealed nearly a decade ago.
Councilors Jack Hanson, Brian Pine and Max Tracy will introduce a resolution on Monday that seeks to place a question on the March 2020 ballot to reinstate the election system. If approved, the topic will go to the council’s Charter Change Committee for consideration.
Councilors Perri Freeman (P-Central District) and Sharon Bushor (I-Ward 1) have also signed on as cosponsors of the measure.
Ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff, allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If none wins a majority, the last-place finisher is eliminated. Votes for that candidate are then assigned to voters’ second choice until one candidate gets a 50 percent majority.
Under the current system, a candidate can earn just 40 percent of the vote to win an election for mayor, city council or school board. The system puts independent and non-major party candidates at a disadvantage, the resolution says, and forces voters to choose the candidate who is most likely to win instead of who they favor most.
“In Burlington, there’s alway been a long tradition of being … a multiparty city,” said Pine, a Ward 3 prog. “This is a well-tested way to ensure that you can have a more pluralistic political system.”
Burlington used instant runoff from 2005 until 2010, when voters repealed it by a 52 to 48 percent margin. Current City Council President Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) led the effort to change the system after he lost the 2009 mayoral race to incumbent Bob Kiss, despite besting the Prog in the first few rounds of ranked-choice voting.
Wright remains opposed to instant runoff and thinks the Progressives are introducing “a major, controversial change” far too late in the year. Charter changes require a public hearing before they can be added to the ballot, which has to be finalized in January, he said.
“There is no perfect voting system, but I think that the flaws in this system that’s being proposed are significantly greater than what we have now,” Wright said.
The Progs argue that ranked-choice voting has numerous benefits. Hanson said it encourages third-party hopefuls to run for office without fear of splitting votes between similar candidates. Many voters also feel like their vote is wasted on a third-party candidate, even if that person best aligns with their ideals, he said.
“It’s not right. It’s a very flawed system that we’re operating under that discourages more than two people from running,” said Hanson, the council’s East District representative. “Voting is a fundamental right, and your vote should be able to relate your values and what you want to see. It should not be a strategy of harm reduction or preventing your most hated candidate from getting in.”
The ranked system would also discourage negative campaigning because it “encourages candidates to focus on their positive vision for voters” as they compete for second and third-round votes, according to the resolution.
The proposal already has support from a cadre of current and former politicos, who wrote a letter this week urging the council to advance the measure.
“Ranked choice voting is a non-partisan issue that is fundamentally about improving and expanding access to our democratic process,” reads the letter, which was cosigned by state Sens. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden) and Chris Pearson (P/D-Chittenden), plus a handful of House representatives from Burlington and former governor Howard Dean.
The Vermont legislature is considering its own move to implement ranked-choice voting. H.444 would permit the method in primary elections for statewide offices but not for legislative seats. If passed, it wouldn’t take effect until 2024.
The Vermont bill is modeled after one passed in Maine, which adopted the system in 2016. Other areas — including cities in Massachusetts, California and Minnesota — have switched to instant runoff voting, and earlier this month, New York City voters supported a ballot item to implement ranked-choice voting by a three-to-one margin.
Hanson thinks times have changed since Burlington voters repealed instant runoff.
“It’s time to give voters another opportunity to weigh in on it,” he said.
Read the full city council resolution here:
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The false choice of Republican/Democratic Party is broken and corrupt. Both parties are nothing more than Wall Street Fellatio Artists at all levels of government, local, state, and national.
We need something else.
So if you can’t win an election out right figure out a way to win any how?
lets say there are 4 candidates.
candidates A-B-C-D.
now a local has to rank them.
what if the local likes
A better than B,
and B better than C,
and C better than D,
and D better than A ??
5-10% of the electorate will get trapped in this infinite loop
and its Tracy, Pine and Hanson’s intention to con them out of their votes
with this 42nd Street shell game so the weakest party can gain control.
It needs to be said plain and clear that Wright NEVER had enough votes to be elected mayor either under the RCV/IRV model or the current and preceding process. Wright likes to whine about that election a lot, but he forgot to go out and get enough folks to vote for him.
Ranked Choice Voting/Instant Runoff Voting dis-empowers political parties and empowers the electorate.
Ranked choice voting gave us arguably the most incompetent and corrupt mayor in modern times. Maybe it’s wrong to blame the process for Bob Kiss, but he has left a major stain on ranked choice that will take many years to dissipate.
A group of bored, overpaid city councillors actually thinks voters care about process?
No.
What voters care about is the exploding city budget that continually requires more and more tax money to finance it.
That’s what these councilors should be concerned about – their profligate, taxpayer-draining spending habits.
Otherwise all they are doing is talking about process – and a way to protect lazy, bored incumbents.
Same goes for the tax-loving council chief – go cut spending and stop indulging these process agents in a nonsensical discussion unrelated to your municipal fiduciary responsibility.
To the reader: If you own property in Vermont’s largest city, go take a look at your tax bill. Then compare it to 1, 5, 10 – however many years ago.
If you are happy with your tax bill, go argue about a mural.
(About as productive as debating an esoteric electoral process while the city falls apart due to burgeoning crime, rising taxes and a downtown devoid of shops and shoppers.)
Why Range Voting is Better than IRV (Instant Runoff Voting): https://rangevoting.org/rangeVirv.html
Bob Kiss was such a wonderful mayor. Please follow through on this so the Queen City may return to its destined glory!
The belief that IRV will encourage more people to run for office doesn’t appear to be supported by the facts. During the two mayoral races with IRV I recall three candidates each time.(maybe one race had four) In the three races since IRV was revoked there have been 2, 4 and 3 candidates. respectively. Not a significant difference. I think the same is true for the down ballot races. It takes a lot of time and resources to run an effective campaign. That is the biggest factor people face when deciding to run.
If the 40% threshold does;t work, how about having a real runoff of the top two?
Fabulous…can you say ‘Mayor Kiss?’