2009 Burlington Mayoral Election
The 2009 Burlington mayoral election was held in March 2009 for the city of Burlington, Vermont. A few years earlier, the city had switched to holding mayoral elections every three years (e.g. the 1997 election, the 2000 election, the 2003 election, and the 2006 election), so this was the second mayoral election since the city's 2005 change to instant-runoff voting (IRV).4. How did this change to IRV come about? ''Over 64% of Burlington voters voted in favor of the IRV Charter amendment in March 2005, and it went into effect on May 12, 2005, when the governor signed the ratification bill, H.505, which had been passed by both the House and Senate.'' In the 2009 election, incumbent [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Condorcet Winner Criterion
An electoral system satisfies the Condorcet winner criterion () if it always chooses the Condorcet winner when one exists. The candidate who wins a majority of the vote in every head-to-head election against each of the other candidatesthat is, a candidate preferred by more voters than any othersis the Condorcet winner, although Condorcet winners do not exist in all cases. It is sometimes simply referred to as the "Condorcet criterion", though it is very different from the "Condorcet loser criterion". Any voting method conforming to the Condorcet winner criterion is known as a Condorcet method. The Condorcet winner is the person who would win a two-candidate election against each of the other candidates in a plurality vote. For a set of candidates, the Condorcet winner is always the same regardless of the voting system in question, and can be discovered by using pairwise counting on voters' ranked preferences. A Condorcet winner will not always exist in a given set of votes, which ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Condorcet Winner
An electoral system satisfies the Condorcet winner criterion () if it always chooses the Condorcet winner when one exists. The candidate who wins a majority of the vote in every head-to-head election against each of the other candidatesthat is, a candidate preferred by more voters than any othersis the Condorcet winner, although Condorcet winners do not exist in all cases. It is sometimes simply referred to as the "Condorcet criterion", though it is very different from the "Condorcet loser criterion". Any voting method conforming to the Condorcet winner criterion is known as a Condorcet method. The Condorcet winner is the person who would win a two-candidate election against each of the other candidates in a plurality vote. For a set of candidates, the Condorcet winner is always the same regardless of the voting system in question, and can be discovered by using pairwise counting on voters' ranked preferences. A Condorcet winner will not always exist in a given set of votes, which ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bob Kiss
Bob Kiss (born April 1, 1947) is a Vermont politician and former 39th Mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Kiss was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from January 2001 until he stepped down to assume office as mayor of Burlington, following his election to that office in March 2006. He is a member of the Vermont Progressive Party. Kiss won re-election in 2009, and was endorsed by Vermont's Independent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. In November 2011, Kiss announced that he would not seek re-election in the 2012 Burlington mayoral election. Biography Kiss has blue-collar roots, having grown up as the son of a union worker in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was a high school basketball player and captain of the tennis team. After having graduated with a B.A. in political science from Knox College in 1969, he joined the Peace Corps, where he trained in Malaysia for 14 weeks. Although called up by a draft board for military service, he was granted conscientious objector status and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cardinal Voting
Cardinal voting refers to any electoral system which allows the voter to give each candidate an independent evaluation, typically a rating or grade. These are also referred to as "rated" (ratings ballot), "evaluative", "graded", or "absolute" voting systems. ''Cardinal'' methods (based on cardinal utility) and '' ordinal methods'' (based on '' ordinal utility'') are two main categories of modern voting systems, along with plurality voting. Variants There are several voting systems that allow independent ratings of each candidate. For example: * Approval voting (AV) is the simplest possible method, which allows only the two grades (0, 1): "approved" or "unapproved". * Evaluative voting (EV) or combined approval voting (CAV) uses 3 grades (−1, 0, +1): "against", "abstain", or "for". * Score voting or range voting, in which ratings are numerical and the candidate with the highest ''average'' (or total) rating wins. ** Score voting uses a discrete integer scale, typic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vote Splitting
Vote splitting is an electoral effect in which the distribution of votes among multiple similar candidates reduces the chance of winning for any of the similar candidates, and increases the chance of winning for a dissimilar candidate. Vote splitting most easily occurs in plurality voting (also called first-past-the-post) in which each voter indicates a single choice and the candidate with the most votes wins, even if the winner does not have majority support. For example, if candidate A1 receives 30% of the votes, similar candidate A2 receives another 30% of the votes, and dissimilar candidate B receives the remaining 40% of the votes, plurality voting declares candidate B as the winner, even though 60% of the voters prefer either candidate A1 or A2. Under such systems vote pairing (also called vote swapping, co-voting or peer to peer voting) can mitigate the effect, but it requires two voters in different districts to agree, and identifying probabilities of candidates winning ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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FairVote
FairVote, formerly the Center for Voting and Democracy, is a 501(c)(3) organization that advocates electoral reform in the United States. Founded in 1992 as Citizens for Proportional Representation to support the implementation of proportional representation in American elections, the organization in 1993 became the Center for Voting and Democracy and in 2004 changed its name to FairVote to reflect its support of such proposals as instant-runoff voting (IRV), for single and multi-winner elections, a national popular vote for president, a right-to-vote amendment to the Constitution, and universal voter registration. FairVote releases regular publications on the state of the U.S. electoral system, including ''Dubious Democracy'' and ''Monopoly Politics''. Notable members of FairVote's board of directors have included its past chairs, former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and former Congressman and 1980 independent presidential candidate John Anderson. About Founding FairVote wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Green Party (United States)
The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is a federation of Green state political parties in the United States. The party promotes green politics, specifically environmentalism; nonviolence; social justice; participatory democracy, grassroots democracy; anti-war; anti-racism; libertarian socialism and eco-socialism. On the political spectrum, the party is generally seen as left-wing. The GPUS was founded in 2001 as the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) split from the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA). After its founding, the GPUS soon became the primary national green organization in the country, surpassing the G/GPUSA, which was formed in 1991 out of the Green Committees of Correspondence (CoC), a collection of local green groups active since the year 1984. The ASGP, which formed in 1996, had increasingly distanced itself from the G/GPUSA in the late 1990s. John Rensenbrink and Howie Hawkins were co-founders of the Green Party. The Greens gained widespread public at ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Independent (politician)
An independent or non-partisan politician is a politician not affiliated with any political party or bureaucratic association. There are numerous reasons why someone may stand for office as an independent. Some politicians have political views that do not align with the platforms of any political party, and therefore choose not to affiliate with them. Some independent politicians may be associated with a party, perhaps as former members of it, or else have views that align with it, but choose not to stand in its name, or are unable to do so because the party in question has selected another candidate. Others may belong to or support a political party at the national level but believe they should not formally represent it (and thus be subject to its policies) at another level. In running for public office, independents sometimes choose to form a party or alliance with other independents, and may formally register their party or alliance. Even where the word "independent" is used, s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vermont Democratic Party
The Vermont Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Vermont. From the time of the American Civil War until the 1960s, Vermont was an almost exclusively Republican state, with Republicans dominating Vermont politics, especially the governorship, from 1854 to 1960. However, perhaps inspired by the election of John F. Kennedy as president in 1960, Vermont Democrats have since staged a resurgence in state politics. The Democratic Party is currently the dominant party in Vermont. The party has almost complete control of the state, with the exception of Republican governor, Phil Scott. It controls Vermont's at-large U.S. House seat, one of its U.S. Senate seats, and both houses of the state legislature. The other U.S. Senate seat is held by Independent Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats. History The exact date or year the state party was formed is unknown because the state headquarters has not retained archives of historical documen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vermont Republican Party
The Vermont Republican Party is the affiliate of the Republican Party in Vermont and has been active since its foundation in the 1860s. The party is the second largest in the state behind the Vermont Democratic Party, but ahead of the Vermont Progressive Party. The party historically dominated Vermont politics until the mid-20th century, but was replaced by the Vermont Democratic Party. History The first convention of the Vermont Republican Party was held on July 13, 1854, in Montpelier, Vermont. The party was organized, nominated candidates for office, selected delegates to the Republican National Convention, and approved a platform. Lawrence Brainerd was selected to serve as president of the convention. Eliakim Persons Walton was initially selected to serve as the party's gubernatorial nominee in the 1854 election, but he withdrew and the party selected to give its nomination to Stephen Royce, who was a member of the Whig Party and had already been nominated to serve as th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Peter Clavelle
Peter A. Clavelle (born May 10, 1949) is an American politician who served as the 38th and 40th mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and was the first member of a third party to hold the office since James Edmund Burke in 1935. Bernie Sanders also won several elections as an independent candidate in the 1980s (e.g. in 1981, in 1983, in 1985, in 1987), defeating both Republican and Democratic candidates. Sanders and Clavelle founded the Vermont Progressive Party during Sanders' time as mayor. Early life and education Peter A. Clavelle was born on May 10, 1949, to Raymond and Eleanor Clavelle in Winooski, Vermont. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in urban studies from Saint Anselm College and a Master of Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Career In 1961, he was elected mayor of Winooski for a day by his Boy Scout troop. In 1972 he was appointed as Castleton's town manager and in 1976 was appointed as Winoosk ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kevin Curley
Kevin () is the anglicized form of the Irish masculine given name (; mga, Caoimhghín ; sga, Cóemgein ; Latinized as ). It is composed of "dear; noble"; Old Irish and ("birth"; Old Irish ). The variant ''Kevan'' is anglicized from , an Irish diminutive form.''A Dictionary of First Names''. Oxford University Press (2007) s.v. "Kevin". The feminine version of the name is (anglicised as ''Keeva'' or ''Kweeva''). History Saint Kevin (d. 618) founded Glendalough abbey in the Kingdom of Leinster in 6th-century Ireland. Canonized in 1903, he is one of the patron saints of the Archdiocese of Dublin. Caomhán of Inisheer, the patron saint of Inisheer, Aran Islands, is properly anglicized ''Cavan'' or ''Kevan'', but often also referred to as "Kevin". The name was rarely given before the 20th century. In Ireland an early bearer of the anglicised name was Kevin Izod O'Doherty (1823–1905) a Young Irelander and politician; it gained popularity from the Gaelic revival of the l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |