A group of Burlington residents have garnered the necessary 1654 signatures to put a simple question to voters: Should Burlington revert to its old way of electing its mayor?
Instant runoff voting (IRV) — which allows voters to rank candidates as a way to choose a winner on election day rather than holding costly separate runoff elections – was perhaps the most controversial element in a five-way race for mayor in March.
If there is no majority winner (50-plus percent) after all first-place ballots are counted, candidates who statistically can’t win are eliminated, and their second-place votes are distributed among the remaining candidates. This process is repeated until someone with 50 percent of the vote emerges.
If IRV is repealed, then the next election for mayor will revert to the old system: A simple plurality (40 percent) wins the day. If no one has 40 percent on election night, then a special runoff between the top two candidates will be held 30 days later.
A multipartisan group calling itself “One Person, One Vote” held a press conference Tuesday afternoon in a City Hall conference room to declare that IRV was a convoluted system that frustrated voters and may have depressed voter turnout.
“I was an early supporter of IRV,” said Democrat John Ewing. “But I’ve been disappointed in the way it has worked. I think it has proven itself to be a disservice to the voters. I think it’s extremely convoluted and that voters don’t understand how it works.”
If that’s true, it would be a slight turnaround from a poll conducted in 2006 — the first year IRV was used in Burlington to elect a mayor.
In 2006, a University of Vermont professor and his students polled Burlingtonians about their understanding of IRV and found that 63.4 percent of voters said they liked IRV, while 17.9 percent disliked it and 18.7 percent did not have an opinion or didn’t know whether they liked it. Those with a postgraduate degree liked IRV more than those with a high school diploma or less. Only about 8 percent of those polled found the system confusing.
Several of the IRV opponents, including Ewing, backed Republican Kurt Wright for mayor this past March. Another Wright supporter, David Hartnett, also collected signatures for the group and said this was more than a sour grapes campaign.
“This has been a grassroots effort,” noted Hartnett. “We waited to bring in the signatures because we didn’t want this to be about Kurt Wright losing after being ahead, or Andy Montroll who had more first and second place votes and didn’t win. We wanted this to be about IRV. In fact, I don’t think a lot of people understood what they were voting for in 2005 when they approved it.”
Hartnett and other IRV opponents said after two mayoral elections it was time for voters to weigh in — again — on whether the voting system was working.
“There was a lot on the ballot that year, and IRV got kinda lost in the shuffle,” said Hartnett. “In the next two and a half months there will be time to focus on IRV.”
Hartnett and others said that, while the lion’s share of early grassroots energy this year emanated from the New North End, petitioners come from throughout the city and represent all major political parties in the Queen City.
Also joining Hartnett and Ewing at Tuesday’s event was Sam Osborne, a prominent Burlington Democrat, Chuck Saleen, a New North End Democrat, and Linda Chagnon of the New North End. Chagnon alone netted roughly 500 signatures.
Ewing and other IRV opponents said the system has done nothing to increase voter turnout. In fact, only 27 percent of registered voters turned up at the polls in March 2009, which seems pretty dismal.
That can be compared with a voter turnout of slightly more than 30 percent in 2006. That said, 2009 had a better turnout than 2003 (22.3 percent) and 2001 (18.7 percent).
In March 2009, there were five candidates on the ballot, four of whom ran strong campaigns: Progressive Bob Kiss (incumbent), then-Councilor Andy Montroll (Democrat), James Simpson (Green Party), Independent Dan Smith and then-Councilor Wright.
Here’s how the vote broke down on election night: In the first round, Wright had 2951 (33%) votes to Kiss’ 2585 (29%) and Montroll’s 2063 (23%).
In the second round, Wright had 3294 (37%) to Kiss’ 2981 (34%) and Montroll’s 2554 (29%) after Smith’s and Simpson’s votes were eliminated and their voters’ second preferences divvied up among the other three candidates.
In the final round, Montroll was eliminated and 1332 of his preferences went to Kiss, while 767 went to Wright. That put Kiss on top with 4313 (51.5%) and Wright with 4061 (48%).
Hence the inspiration behind this T-shirt, which offered a new definition of IRV: “Keep Counting ’Til Bob Wins.”
In 2006, it also took Kiss more than one round to win a majority of votes, but he was in the lead in both rounds against his closest challenger — Democrat Hinda Miller.
This year, however, the margin was close enough that Wright asked for a recount. Wright called off the hand recount as soon as it was clear that it was not differing from the election night results.
Here was my take in a “Fair Game” column shortly after the election, after some fumed that Wright had the election stolen from him. I mean, really, who would have thought a left-leaning, liberal city would pass on putting a Republican in the mayor’s office? Incroyable!
IRV proponents noted at the time, and will undoubtedly note again in the coming months, that IRV worked as it was designed.
They said the ranking system saves time and money by allowing voters to rank their candidates and take care of the runoff the same night. Also, fewer voters actually take part in separate runoff elections.
But that doesn’t stop folks from claiming hell froze over last March. Vermont GOP Chairman Rob Roper called Kiss’ reelection a “travesty” and claimed the “will of the voters was circumvented.”
Was it true? I decided to look more closely at how the votes broke down, and here’s what I found:
People may not be happy that Kiss was reelected, and certainly at today’s press conference the word “leadership” was tossed around a lot — mostly in a negative sense. As in, Kiss offers none.
Look, it’s no secret that Wards 4 and 7 are more conservative than other parts of the city and that they were going to go overwhelmingly for Wright. And they did.
The question for March 2010, however, is how much of the anti-IRV effort is truly a referendum on IRV, and how much is a referendum on Mayor Kiss. His term isn’t up, technically, until 2012, but a spate of leadership crises related to Burlington Telecom, the Moran Plant redevelopment and the loss of General Dynamics practically put Kiss in the lame duck category. And to think it’s only the guy’s first year of a three-year term.
Sounds like IRV could soon find itself another fossilized relic that anthropologists hundreds of years from now use to define what could be dubbed Burlington’s Progressazoic Era.
This article appears in Dec 30, 2009 – Jan 5, 2010.
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“intermeddling, elitist, social engineer[ing]” means having elections that do not thwart the will of the majority of the electorate? I guess you could say the same for them damn intermeddling, elitist, social engineering, abolitionists. they just don’t know when to leave well enough alone.see no hyphens!r b-j(Doh!)
Armitage: your analogy of the Civil War to a municipal election is so ridiculous it’s beyond laughable. Get a grip.Perfesser Hyphenation: I am not a Bushie and I don’t care who wins the plurality/runoff election. Kiss, Montroll, Wright. I have my preferred candidate, but I don’t care who wins and I’ll accept the pluraility winner. Because I’m a small d democrat and a populist and a realist. You IRV and Condorcet advocates are intermeddling, elitist, social engineers.
i dunno about Jimmy, but what Webber and his ilk want is for their guy to win. no matter what the electorate wants, they want to win. no matter what the will of the voters are, they think they should win. these Bushie-GOPers feel entitled to lead. they are the leadership class (like the Brahmin) and whether they are the majority or the minority at any place or time, they think that they should be the leaders and set the direction of the development of society. so they want election rules that favor themselves, even against the will of the rest of society.the Burlinton IRV election screwed up in 2009. but that fig leaf does not cover their pudenda. that fig leaf says that Andy Montroll was the preferred choice for mayor of the majority of Burlington in 2009. in 2006, it said that Bob Kiss was the preference over either Hinda Miller or Kevin Curley (or Loyal, who is hangin around these parts or Mr. Cowman). that does not cover their nakedness that says that, of the three, their guy was *least* preferred by Burlington voters. it is a matter of public record that Kurt Wright is less preferred by the majority of Burlington voters than either Bob Kiss or Andy Montroll. it is also a matter of the same public record that Andy Montroll is (or *was* on March 3, 2009) preferred over Bob Kiss by the majority of Burlington voters.why should Kurt Wright be mayor of Burlington when he is less preferred by the electorate to either Bob Kiss or Andy Montroll? the final IRV round confirmed that Wright is less preferred than Kiss, and again, the mistake that IRV made is that it didn’t consider whether or not Kiss is preferred over Montroll (or whether Wright is preferred over Montroll).they can preach their “one person, one vote” canard. it’s a lie. but they hope that if they repeat it often enough that their canard will somehow evolve in status from “falsehood” to “plausible notion” to “gospel truth”. but it won’t. lipstick won’t change that pig. every time they say “one person, one vote” we shall remind everyone that what they’re really advocating is Minority Rule. they want Minority Rule because they are the minority political group in Burlington and the only way they get to lead (unless Burlington becomes more conservative and/or Burlington Republicans become more moderate to become more attractive to moderate Dems and Progs) is to have election rules that can possibly elect their minority candidate.we see through that, and anyone who can’t is either “duh” (because they believe the canard and are acting against their own interest for representative democracy) or they are precisely those minority-party voters who cynically wish to re-stack the deck in their favor.
@ Owen Mulligan”I was disenfranchised from that election because I did not want to rank candidates or strategize over the possible outcome. I just wanted to vote for one candidate and that’s it.”So you decide to vote as if there were a different election system, and expect everyone else to abandon duly enacted law just to accommodate you, and when they don’t, you think you’re disenfranchised? Yes, stupid you.
@ Webber”Yeah, most votes wins. Period. End of story. It’s worked that way without revolution for some 200 years in this country. Your implication that it’s bad for democracy is demonstrably silly. If the most-votes-wins rule is bad for democracy, howcome it’s been the accepted method of electing leaders for 200 years and hasn’t produced any voter uprisings? Not one.”So your argument is that plurality winners haven’t made people angry enough for a “revolution” or “uprising” — the lowest standard imaginable, and you’re still completely wrong. It produced a little voter uprising called the Civil War. The bloodiest, most destructive war in American history.But, you might say, we like Abraham Lincoln, we’re glad he won, we think the South was wrong to have slaves in the first place and was wrong to leave the Union, and, while we don’t like war for its own sake, if war was the only way to end slavery, it was good that the war came. And I’d agree with you. But that’s not what you said. You said, “not one”. You’ve said it over and over, in the most abject pig-ignorance.Do you see any slaves around these days? Do you see anything in domestic politics that would justify a minority forcing its will on the majority, by violence if necessary? Of course not. Therefore, the moral rights and wrongs of the 1860s are beside the point: what is relevant for us, in this discussion, is that the formal system failed catastrophically. The fact that it hasn’t been subjected to any equivalent stresses since then is pure luck.”Newsflash for you elitist social-engineering busybodies: the voters LIKE the plurality/runoff system. Stop trying to tell us what’s “better” for us. Stop trying to tell us we’d be happier doing it your “smart” way.”Seems like you’re the one telling the voters they’re wrong, because they voted for IRV in the first place.
“The fact that IRV sometimes fails to elect the Condorcet winner isn’t a reason to revert to the far less Condorcet-friendly Plurality method.”I am completely in agreement with that, Aaron.My only chide to the hard-core IRV supporters (like FairVote.org and other IRV happy talkers who continue to repeat the canard that it was a “resounding success” in 2009 and that “there was no talk of spoliers”) is not to be politically greedy.just like economic greed precedes a fall (or meltdown, like in 2008), the Progs and hardcore IRV proponents should be careful to not grab too much. they must recognize that IRV simply transferred the burden of having to think strategically about voting from themselves (they don’t have to sacrifice their vote for their “fringe” 3rd-party candidate just to avoid electing the GOP candidate they like least) to the other “fringe”, the GOP Prog-haters. the GOP Prog-haters found out that by sincerely supporting their favorite candidate (Wright), they kept their less-disliked fallback candidate (Montroll) out of the IRV final round which caused their most-disliked candidate to win the election.if IRV survives the repeal vote, what will these GOP Prog-haters be thinking at the polls in 2012? “Gee, last time I voted for my favorite, I actually helped elect my least favorite. Guess I’ll have to compromise and vote for the Dem, just to keep the Prog from winning.” that is exactly the voting strategy we were trying to avoid by adopting IRV in the first place and what we did was transfer the burden of needing to consider that strategy from the liberals in Burlington to the conservatives. that’s a legitimate reason for them to be pissed.it is *not* a legitimate reason for them to be pissed that their candidate (Wright) wasn’t elected. that is a bogus and selfish reason to oppose election reform. do they wonder why a majority of residents in this liberal town do not want their GOP candidate to be elected? do they consider themselves entitled to have their guy elected even though a majority of the electorate is opposed to their guy (in favor of any of two other specific candidates, in fact)? both Bob Kiss *and* Andy Montroll are preferred by Burlington voters over Kurt Wright. these mouth-frothing anti-IRV reactionaries don’t want to admit that Kurt Wright came in third. he is the *third* most preferred candidate for mayor in 2009, and the fig leaf of plurality doesn’t hide that fact.the problem is, the question that IRV asked voters about who they preferred between Bob Kiss and Kurt Wright (and the answer was Bob Kiss which is why he is now re-elected by IRV rules) was not asked (by IRV tabulation) of the voters about Bob Kiss and Andy Montroll. again, we know that if Andy Montroll had been in the final round with *any* other candidate, be it Kiss or Wright or Smith or Homer, Andy would have beaten that other candidate. that is why and how IRV failed the cause of democracy last March.
In IRV, real voters cast real ballots, which at each step are really counted and have real consequences for who is elected and who is defeated. That’s the definition of a real election.Someone here says that in a “REAL” election the candidates can gain or lose support — which is true, and important. But sooner or later, there has to be a decision. You can’t just keep voting on the same people over and over until the Second Coming or the heat death of the universe, whichever comes first. I’m sure you recognize that, which is why you’re only talking up the merits of a second election rather than, say, holding nine elections whenever there are ten candidates, dropping one candidate each time. But really, if more time for “dynamics” to help us make up our mind (as if people actually WANT to listen to more political campaigning), you should just demand the vote be held immediately before the winner is to take office. Then you’ll have all the dynamics possible.BTW, I’m a Condorcet supporter. The fact that IRV sometimes fails to elect the Condorcet winner isn’t a reason to revert to the far less Condorcet-friendly Plurality method.
So either it’s impossible to get Condorcet on the ballot, in which case there’s no point in talking about it; or it’s possible but you don’t want to expend the effort.
like you, Jimmy, or anyone else, i do what i can. i can’t do anymore than i can. (as long as we’re into redundancies.)
“it would be nice if the two sides, rather than digging in their heels, considered a 3rd way”I’ll risk redundancy here because you seem to be a big fan of it – if this is such a big deal to you then do something about it. Otherwise you’re bitching about the weather.