2009 Burlington mayoral election

The city of Burlington, Vermont approved IRV for use in mayoral elections with a 64% vote in 2005,[1] at a time when IRV was only used in a few local elections in the United States.[9] The 2006 Burlington mayoral race was decided after two rounds of IRV tallying, selecting candidate Bob Kiss of the Vermont Progressive Party (VPP). In the election, Kiss prevailed over opponents Hinda Miller, Democrat, and Kevin Curley, Republican. With his election Kiss became the second member of the VPP to be elected to the office (Peter Clavelle was the first).

• Bob Kiss (P), incumbent mayor seeking second term
• Andy Montroll (D), current City Councilor
• Dan Smith (I), lawyer
• James Simpson (G), owner of human-powered transportation services company in Burlington
• Kurt Wright (R), current City Councilor and State Representative

Unlike Burlington's first IRV mayoral election in 2006, the mayoral race in 2009 was decided in three rounds. Bob Kiss won the election, receiving 28.8% of the vote in the first round, and receiving 48.0% in the final round (which made up 51.5% of the ballots which had not been exhausted), defeating final challenger Kurt Wright (who received more votes than Kiss in the earlier rounds, but only received 45.2% in the final round).

The elimination rounds were as follows:[10][11]

The IRV election is considered a success by IRV advocates such as FairVote, asserting it prevented the election of the first round plurality leader by avoiding the effect of vote-splitting between the other candidates,[12] was easy for voters to understand,[13] avoided the need for traditional runoffs,[13][14] and "contributed to producing a campaign among four serious candidates that was widely praised for its substantive nature".[12]

Advocates of other voting reforms considered the election a failure of IRV because a 54% majority of voters preferred another specific candidate over the IRV winner:[15] The Condorcet "beats-all" winner[16][17][18][19][20] (and likely most-approved/highest-rated candidate) did not win.[21][15] Critics claimed the system is convoluted,[14] did nothing to increase voter turnout,[14] turned voting into a "gambling game" due to non-monotonicity,[16][22][23] and "eliminated the most popular moderate candidate and elected an extremist".[22]

The IRV outcome was a result of vote-splitting: Andy Montroll defeated both Bob Kiss and Kurt Wright in separate pairwise contests, and was eliminated in the second round of IRV due to vote-splitting with both candidates. Kurt Wright acted as a spoiler candidate (a loser whose presence in the race changed who the winner is), splitting the vote against Bob Kiss; Wright received more first-choice votes (including promoted votes to first-choice) than Montroll due to Kiss splitting the vote against Wright.[24]

The election did demonstrate that voters are capable of using ranked-choice ballots, with 99.9% of the ballots filled out correctly,[12] though this includes 16% of voters who bullet-voted for only one candidate.[25]

Pairwise preference combinations:[21][26]

This leads to an overall preference ranking of:[26]

1. Montroll – defeats all candidates below, including Kiss (4,064 to 3,476)
2. Kiss – defeats all candidates below, including Wright (4,313 to 4,061)
3. Wright – defeats all candidates below, including Smith (3,971 to 3,793)
4. 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.[27][4]

There was post-election controversy regarding the IRV method, and in 2010 a citizen's initiative resulted in the repeal of IRV in Burlington.[28] Initial energy for a repeal campaign was "stagnant" by the early fall, but Bob Kiss became embroiled in a series of controversies.[29] In December 2009, a group called "One Person, One Vote", made up of Republicans and Democrats unhappy with the election outcome,[14] held a press conference to announce that they had collected enough signatures for an initiative to repeal IRV.[30] According to a local columnist, the vote was a referendum on Mayor Kiss, who was a "lame duck" because of a scandal relating to Burlington Telecom and other local issues.[14] However, in an interview with Vermont Public Radio, Mayor Kiss disputed that claim,[31] and those gathering signatures for the repeal stated that it was specifically a rejection of IRV itself.[14]

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.[6][7][8] 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."[29]

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.[32]

In 2011, an initiative effort to increase the winning threshold from the 40% plurality to a 50% majority failed by 58.5% to 41.5%.[33]

In 2019, instant-runoff voting was once again proposed for Burlington by Councilor Jack Hanson. It was not approved by the Charter Change Committee for the March 2020 ballot.[34] In July 2020, the city council voted 6–5 in support of a measure to reinstate IRV, but it was vetoed by the Mayor in August.[35]

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