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city councilors wants to resurrect ranked-choice voting, a controversial election method that Queen City voters repealed nearly a decade ago.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Burlington used instant runoff from 2005 until 2010, when voters repealed it by a 52 to 48 percent margin.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.
“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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Fabulous…can you say ‘Mayor Kiss?’
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?
Bob Kiss was such a wonderful mayor. Please follow through on this so the Queen City may return to its destined glory!
Why Range Voting is Better than IRV (Instant Runoff Voting): https://rangevoting.org/rangeVirv.html
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.)
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.
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.
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.
So if you can’t win an election out right figure out a way to win any how?
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.
Whoever gets the highest amount of votes should be the winner like in the presidential race..
Hay Ian, Score Voting (what you call “Range Voting”) sucks. It inherently presents the voter with a tactical question as soon as they sit down with their ballot: “How much do I score my second-choice candidate? Too high and I help him beat my first-choice. Too low and it helps my third-choice beat my second-choice.”
We are not Olympic figure skating judges. Voters should not be burdened with tactical voting. Both FPTP and Score Voting force the voter to vote tactically.
This is it Burlington Democrat’s and Republicans, if you don’t want to cede control of you’re city to the progressives, then you better voice you’re opinion and vote accordingly.
I am so glad I don’t live in Burlington.
Oh, why couldn’t we have Mayor Wright, even the majority of the population voted against him? Mayor Wright would have prevented the 2008 finanicial crisis that led to the demise of BT. No wait, better stick to the script…it was that awful Kiss.
Ufff, where does the Grownassman even start with this topic? Elections are sensitive topics so the rules that govern them have to not just be fair but more importantly never give up any perception of not being fair. By this measure the current system is better than IRV as IRV has too many rules to follow and can produce results that are not fully intended or perceived as fair or common sense. This is what happened in 2009 when Kiss got re-elected as he was not the winning candidate of the people in the first or second round of voting. No system is perfect but there is only one system that is the lesser of all evils and that its whoever gets the majority of votes wins. In a town with multiple parties 40% sounds reasonable as a threshold to win as it’s probably impossible not to have a split outcome where no one receives above 50% of the total votes. If there is less than 40% have a run-off election between the two largest vote holders which is a fairer way to determine a true winner, than blind allocation of votes in an IRV system which happens when you don’t know who actually won in the 2nd or 3rd round of votes. For a better breakdown of why IRV does not work click here https://rangevoting.org/Burlington.html
Hey r b-j, what you are claiming is totally and provably FALSE!!!
Proof here: https://rangevoting.org/rangeVirv.html – “In range voting, if any set of voters increase a candidate’s score, it obviously can help him, but cannot hurt him. That is called monotonicity. Two of IRV’s flaws are that it is not monotonic and dishonesty can pay.”
“Too high and I help him beat my first-choice.” FALSE, because regardless of how high a score you give your second choice, you can never help your second choice beat your first choice. By definition, your first choice will receive a score higher than or equal to the score you give to your second choice. If the two scores are equal (which is not even possible in IRV), then the first and second choices are helped equally. If the score given to the first choice is higher than the score given to the second choice, then the first choice is always helped more than the second choice.
“Too low and it helps my third-choice beat my second-choice.” FALSE, for the same reason. By definition, your second choice will receive a score higher than or equal to your third choice. If the two scores are equal (which is not even possible in IRV), then the second and third choices are helped equally. If the score given to the second choice is higher than the score given to the third choice, then the second choice is always helped more than the third choice.
IRV is unconstitutional. The law of the land is simple: one vote ONE TIME per voter. Period. Counting votes twice thrice or fourfold is simply unconstitutional. The first time an IRV challenge gets to the U.S. Supreme Court it will be struck down forever. Thank God.
Ranked Choice Voting/Instant Runoff Voting (RCV/IRV) has not only been ruled constitutional by at least two different state Supreme Courts (Maine & New Mexico), but it also has the benefit of combining any necessary runoff elections into a single ballot session for the voter – thus everybody’s vote is counted equally in each election they participate in.
Hmmmm …. sounds pretty standard to me.
But it gets even better under RCV/IRV. Standard runoff elections that are held on separate days from the general election have notoriously low turn out. RCV/IRV obviously negates this extremely harmful issue.
RCV/IRV is also beyond easy to understand. As a matter of fact this style of voting has fewer decision making points then are required for an order at a fast food restaurant. Who’s your number one choice? And if that gal/guy isn’t available, then who would you pick? And who would you like as your final backstop?
Of course if the menu offers continued choices then you can keep selecting a replacement.
“U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker, appointed by President Donald Trump, roundly rejected Poliquin’s suit in a 30-page ruling. Poliquin and the other plaintiffsa couple of Poliquin votershad argued that Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution calls for plurality voting.
….
Walker also rejected an argument by the Poliquin-voting plaintiffs that the system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by not treating their votes with the same “weight” as others.”
https://reason.com/2018/12/13/federal-judg…
If we are suggesting different scenarios for candidate selection, how about no elections, but rather, required service? As a resident, put your name in and when called, it’s matched to openings. Maybe you’ll be Mayor or City Council, but maybe you’ll be on the Cemetery Commission. Takes the ego out of it, and the desire to control outcome based on ideology and power. Everyone serves. To the best of their ability. Whatever role you are assigned to. Rather than what your ego wants you to do.
“”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.
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.
Guess they want another complete mess like Bob Kiss was. This is a stupid idea.
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.
“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?
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.
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. 🙁
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.