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city councilors wants to resurrect ranked-choice voting, a controversial election method that Queen City voters repealed nearly a decade ago.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Burlington used instant runoff from 2005 until 2010, when voters repealed it by a 52 to 48 percent margin.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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Notice how it’s only when the Progs haven’t been able to control City Hall for a few years that they try to sell us on the wonderful virtues of IRV?
The divine Bernie Sanders didn’t need IRV to get elected mayor Burlington FOUR times in the 1980s.
Prog Peter Clavelle didn’t need IRV to get elected mayor of Burlington EIGHT times in the 1990s and 2000s.
Nope, not a peep about the wonders of IRV as long as the Progs felt that they safely dominated city politics. They loved the traditional one-person, one-vote system as long as it kept their guy in the mayor’s office.
If the Progs had a strong, charismatic candidate who could win the mayor’s office under our traditional election system, we wouldn’t be hearing from them about IRV. It’s only cuz they don’t have viable mayoral candidates that they insist we have to switch to their voting scheme. If ya can’t win, change the rules.
The progs will do/say/change/invent whatever is necessary to get their way or stay in power. You don’t like Burlington? The progs have been firmly entrenched in local government for a few decades now. But, look at the bright side…we got bike lanes. 🙁
More like:
Filing unearned mileage claims: Corren, Bouricius, Zuckerman.
Campaign finance violations: Corren
Misuse of the City funds: Kiss and Leopold.
Face it, you can’t leave your wallet lying around if a Prog is in the room.
“Fundamentally; Progs lie to get what they want..”
Ya mean, like, hating on Democrats 364 days per year but then pretending to be one on election day?
From their list of questionably sourced “Whereas”‘s-
“Roberts Rules of Order, under which the Burlington City Council conducts its meetings, recommends ranked choice voting as superior to our current “plurality” voting procedure;”
No. No it does not. What it says is:
“Preferential Voting: … While it is more complicated than other methods of voting in common use and is not a substitute for the normal procedure of repeated balloting until a majority is obtained, preferential voting is especially useful and fair in an election by mail if it is impractical to take more than one ballot.”
They are just simply repeating the talking points from Terry Bouricius ( who with Dean Corren made up the infamous fraudulent mileage claim duo; the Self Righteous Brothers) and his “FairVote” group.
Fundamentally; Progs lie to get what they want.
Guess they want another complete mess like Bob Kiss was. This is a stupid idea.
Those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to relive it. Not surprising to me that this has been proposed by the progs. That seems to be their way into the mayoral seat. Been there, Did that and it was a failure. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Instead of IRV maybe what they need is a viable candidate.
“”Its not right. Its a very flawed system that were operating under that discourages more than two people from running,” said Hanson, the council’s East District representative.”
Perhaps this statement — which is verbatim what the Progs said when they wanted Burlington to adopt IRV in 2005 — demonstrates why we shouldn’t elect a 24 year old to the City Council. He is unaware of the history that he now wants us to repeat. Burlington tried IRV when Hanson was 10 years old and soundly got rid of it in 2010 when he was 15. He didn’t live through the Kiss mal-administration — IRV’s fabulous gift to Burlington. He didn’t even move to Burlington until 2012.