2009 Burlington, Vermont Mayoral Election

The 2009 Burlington, Vermont mayoral election was the second mayoral election since the city's 2005 change to instant-runoff voting (IRV), also known as ranked-choice voting (RCV), after the 2006 mayoral election. ''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 Burlington mayor ( Bob Kiss) won reelection as a member of the Vermont Progressive Party, defeating Kurt Wright in the final round with 48% of the vote (51.5% excluding exhausted ballots).

Unlike the city's first IRV election three years prior, however, Kiss was neither the plurality winner ( Republican Kurt Wright) nor the majority-preferred candidate ( Democrat Andy Montroll), and Montroll was ranked more preferably than Kiss on 54% of cast ballots. Furthermore, 750 voters for Kurt Wright actually indirectly contributed to Kiss's victory despite ranking Kiss last, a phenomenon known as a failure of participation monotonicity.

This surprising outcome led to a controversy about the use of IRV in mayoral elections, culminating in a successful 2010 citizen's initiative repealing IRV's use by a vote of 52% to 48%.

Background

Since Bernie Sanders' election as mayor in 1981, his allies and the Vermont Progressive Party had continuously held the mayoralty except for two years. The number of registered voters in Burlington rose from 24,991 in 2006, to 33,200 in 2009.

The city of Burlington, Vermont, approved IRV for use in mayoral elections with a 64% vote in 2005, at a time when IRV was used only in a few local elections in the United States. The 2006 Burlington, Vermont mayoral election was decided by two rounds of IRV tallying, selecting candidate Bob Kiss of the Vermont Progressive Party (VPP). In the election, Kiss prevailed over Democrat Hinda Miller and Republican Kevin Curley. With his election Kiss became the second member of the VPP to be elected to the office after Peter Clavelle.

Nominations

Progressive

Kiss officially launched his campaign on January 7, 2009.

Democratic

On December 3, 2008, the Democrats unanimously selected to give their nomination to Montroll, who was nominated by Representative Johannah Leddy Donovan. Montroll's website was hacked two times during the campaign to feature materials about Turkey and the statements "Oooo Yeah" and "DumansaL Was Here" before being signed by "White Devil".

Republican

Kurt Wright, president of the city council, announced his campaign on December 11, 2008.

Other

Dan Smith, the son of Peter Plympton Smith, announced that he would run as an independent on December 2, 2008. His cousin Emily served as his campaign manager.

Campaign

During the campaign raised $50,986 and spent $51,193, Wright raised $39,365 and spent $34,585, Montroll raised $24,202 and spent $23,021, and Kiss raised $20,265 and spent $19,946. In the last ten days of the campaign Wright raised and spent more than his opponents. Kiss received $5,000 from family members, Montroll received $4,875, Smith received $3,800, and Wright received nothing.

5 of the 7 city councilors up for reelection declined to run, including Montroll and Wright who ran for mayor instead. The Republicans lost a seat while the Democrats gained one resulting in a composition of 7 Democrats, 3 Progressives, 2 Republicans, and 2 independents.

Results

A recount was requested by Wright, but he withdrew his demand on March 10, after 43% of the votes were recounted.

The elimination rounds were as follows:

Analysis

FairVote touted the 2009 election as one of its major success stories, with IRV helping the city avoid the cost of a traditional runoff election (which likely would not have changed who won). They also argued IRV prevented a spoiler effect that would have occurred under plurality.

Later analyses stated the race was spoiled, however, with Wright acting as a spoiler pulling moderate votes from Montroll, who would have defeated Kiss in a one-on-one race. (However, when Montroll's votes were transferred, they went largely to Kiss, not to Wright.)

FairVote also claimed the election as a success story because 99.9% of voters filled out at least one preference on their ranked-choice ballot. 16.5% of voters only selected one candidate, with 28.5% of Wright's and 29% of Kiss' voters doing so. 37.8% of the voters did not select a third candidate. 7% of ballots did not rank either of the candidates in the last round, leaving them unrepresented.

Some mathematicians and voting theorists criticized the election results as revealing several pathologies associated with instant-runoff voting, noting that Kiss was elected as a result of 750 votes cast against him (ranking Kiss in last place).

Several electoral reform advocates branded the election a failure after Kiss was elected, despite 54% of voters voting for Montroll over Kiss, violating the principle of majority rule.

Tournament matrix

The results of every possible one-on-one election can be completed as follows:

This leads to an overall preference ranking of:

# Montroll – defeats all candidates below, including Kiss (4,064 to 3,476)
# Kiss – defeats all candidates below, including Wright (4,313 to 4,061)
# Wright – defeats all candidates below, including Smith (3,971 to 3,793)
# Smith – defeats Simpson (5,570 to 721) and the write-in candidates

Montroll was therefore preferred over Kiss by 54% of voters, preferred over Wright by 56% of voters, over Smith by 60%, and over Simpson by 91% of voters.

Hypothetical results under various voting systems

Because all ballots were fully released, it is possible to reconstruct the winners under other voting methods. While Wright would have won under plurality, Kiss won under IRV, and if they voted again the same way that they marked their preferential ballot, he would have won under a two-round vote or a traditional nonpartisan blanket primary.

Montroll, being the Condorcet winner, would have won if the ballots were counted using ranked pairs (or any other Condorcet method). Analyses suggested Montroll also would have won under most rated voting methods, including score voting, approval voting, majority judgment, or STAR voting.

Effect on IRV in Burlington

There was post-election controversy regarding the IRV method, and in March 2010 a citizen's initiative resulted in the repeal of IRV in Burlington. The initially "stagnant" repeal campaign drew renewed interest as Kiss became embroiled in a series of controversies. In December 2009, a group called "One Person, One Vote", made up of Republicans and Democrats unhappy with the election outcome, held a press conference to announce that they had collected enough signatures for an initiative to repeal IRV. According to a local columnist, the vote was a referendum on Kiss's mayoralty; Kiss had allegedly become a "lame duck" because of a scandal relating to Burlington Telecom and other local issues. However, in an interview with Vermont Public Radio, Kiss disputed that claim, and those gathering signatures for the repeal stated that it was specifically a rejection of IRV itself.

Locals argued the system was convoluted, turned the 2009 election into a "gambling game" by disqualifying Montroll for having won too many votes, and "eliminated the most popular moderate candidate and elected an extremist".

David Zuckerman stated that the success of the repeal was due to Kiss' unpopularity and scandals in his administration. Rob Richie, the executive director of FairVote, said that ranked choice would have been more popular had it been used for the city council as well.

The IRV repeal initiative in March 2010 won 52% to 48%. It earned a majority of the vote in only two of the city's seven wards, but the vote in those 2009 strongholds for Kurt Wright was lopsided against IRV. Republican Governor Jim Douglas signed the repeal into law in April 2010, saying "Voting ought to be transparent and easy to understand, and affects the will of the voters in a direct way. I'm glad the city has agreed to a more traditional process."

The repeal reverted the system back to a 40% rule that requires a top-two runoff if no candidate exceeds 40% of the vote. Had the 2009 election occurred under these rules, Kiss and Wright would have advanced to the runoff. If the same voters had participated in the runoff as in the first election and not changed their preferences, Kiss would have won the runoff.

The following decade saw continuing controversy about voting methods in Burlington. In 2011, for example, an initiative effort to increase the winning threshold from the 40% plurality to a 50% majority failed by 58.5% to 41.5%, while in 2019, instant-runoff voting was once again proposed for Burlington by Councilor Jack Hanson but went unapproved by the Charter Change Committee for the March 2020 ballot.

One year later, in July 2020, the city council voted 6–5 in support of a measure to reinstate IRV, but it was vetoed by Mayor Miro Weinberger the following month. The council then amended the measure to apply only to the council itself, which the Mayor accepted, and on March 2, 2021, Burlington voters voted in favor of IRV for its city council by 64% to 36% (8,914 to 4,918). The charter change required approval by the Vermont legislature, which enacted it in May of 2022, and which the governor allowed to become law without his signature. The council in September 2022, the voters in March 2023, and the legislature in May 2023 approved the expansion of use of IRV for mayor, school commissioners, and ward election officers, with first use in March 2024.

Endorsements

See also

* Center squeeze

References

Works cited

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External links

City's website
* Ballot data: , see ''2009 Burlington Mayor Final Piles Report.txt''

Comparative visualizations
of IRV, Condorcet and Borda results.

{{2009 United States elections

Burlington, Vermont
Burlington Mayor
2009 controversies in the United States
2009
21st century in Burlington, Vermont
March 2009 in the United States