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 First round results by ward Second round results by ward Final round results by wardKiss: 30–40% 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% Wright: 50–60% 60–70% Montroll: 30–40% 40–50% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The2009 Burlington mayoral election was the second mayoral election since the city's 2005 change toinstant-runoff voting (IRV), also known as ranked-choice voting (RCV), after the2006 mayoral election.[1] In the 2009 election, incumbentBurlington mayor (Bob Kiss) won reelection as a member of theVermont Progressive Party,[2] defeating Kurt Wright in the final round with 48% of the vote (51.5% excludingexhausted ballots).
The election created controversy as a result of several election pathologies.[3] Unlike the city's first IRV election three years prior, Kiss was neither theplurality winner nor themajority-preferred candidate (Democrat Andy Montroll),[4][5] and Kiss was declared winner as a result of 750 votes castagainst his candidacy (ranking him last).[3] The election is a well-known example of acenter squeeze, a kind ofspoiler effect in IRV that favors more-extreme candidates over more-moderate ones.
The controversy surrounding the election ended in a successful 2010 citizen'sinitiative which repealed IRV by a vote of 52% to 48%.[6][7][8]
SinceBernie Sanders' election as mayor in1981, his allies and theVermont Progressive Party had continuously held the mayoralty except for two years.[9] The number of registered voters in Burlington rose from 24,991 in 2006, to 33,200 in 2009.[10]
The city ofBurlington, Vermont, approved IRV for use in mayoral elections with a 64% vote in 2005,[11] at a time when IRV was used only in a few local elections in the United States.[12] The2006 Burlington, Vermont mayoral election was decided by two rounds of IRV tallying, selecting candidateBob Kiss of theVermont Progressive Party (VPP). In the election, Kiss prevailed overDemocratHinda Miller andRepublican Kevin Curley. With his election Kiss became the second member of the VPP to be elected to the office afterPeter Clavelle.
Kiss officially launched his campaign on January 7, 2009.[13]
On December 3, 2008, the Democrats unanimously selected to give their nomination to Montroll, who was nominated by RepresentativeJohannah Leddy Donovan.[14] Montroll's website was hacked two times during the campaign to feature materials aboutTurkey and the statements "Oooo Yeah" and "DumansaL Was Here" before being signed by "White Devil".[15]
Kurt Wright, president of the city council, announced his campaign on December 11, 2008.[16]
Dan Smith, the son ofPeter Plympton Smith, announced that he would run as an independent on December 2, 2008.[9] His cousin Emily served as his campaign manager.[17]
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.[18]
5 of the 7 city councilors up for reelection declined to run, including Montroll and Wright who ran for mayor instead.[19] The Republicans lost a seat while the Democrats gained one resulting in a composition of 7 Democrats, 3 Progressives, 2 Republicans, and 2 independents.[20][21]
| 2009 Burlington, Vermont mayoral election debates | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Date & Time | Host | Moderator | Link | Participants | ||||||||||
| Key: P Participant A Absent N Non-invitee I Invitee | Progressive | Republican | Democratic | Independent | |||||||||||
| Bob Kiss | Kurt Wright | Andy Montroll | Dan Smith | ||||||||||||
| 1[22][23] | January 8, 2009 8:00 a.m. EDT | Burlington Business Association | Brad Robertson Mike Townsend | P | P | P | P | ||||||||
| 2[24] | February 5, 2009 | Seven Days | Ken Picard Shay Totten | P | P | P | P | ||||||||
| 3[25][26] | February 10, 2009 5:00 p.m. EDT | Town Meeting Television | P | P | P | P | |||||||||
| 4[27] | February 15, 2009 | Vermont Interfaith Action | P | A | P | P | |||||||||
| 5[28] | February 22, 2009 | P | P | P | P | ||||||||||
A recount was requested by Wright,[29] but he withdrew his demand on March 10, after 43% of the votes were recounted.[30]
| Party | Candidate | Maximum round | Maximum votes | Share in maximum round | Maximum votes First round votes Transfer votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Progressive | Bob Kiss | 3 | 4,313 | 48.0% | | |
| Republican | Kurt Wright | 3 | 4,061 | 45.2% | | |
| Democratic | Andy Montroll | 2 | 2,554 | 28.4% | | |
| Independent | Dan Smith | 1 | 1,306 | 14.5% | | |
| Green | James Simpson | 1 | 35 | 0.4% | | |
| Write-in | 1 | 36 | 0.4% | | ||
| Exhausted votes | 606 | 6.7% | | |||
The elimination rounds were as follows:[31]
| Candidates | 1st round | 2nd round | 3rd round | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | % Active | ± | Votes | % | % Active | ± | Votes | % | % Active |
| Kurt Wright | Republican | 2,951 | 32.9% | 32.9% | +343 | 3,294 | 36.7% | 37.3% | +767 | 4,061 | 45.2% | 48.5% |
| Bob Kiss | Progressive | 2,585 | 28.8% | 28.8% | +396 | 2,981 | 33.2% | 33.8% | +1332 | 4,313 | 48.0% | 51.5% |
| Andy Montroll | Democrat | 2,063 | 23.0% | 23.0% | +491 | 2,554 | 28.4% | 28.9% |  N | Eliminated | ||
| Dan Smith | Independent | 1,306 | 14.5% | 14.5% | N | Eliminated | ||||||
| James Simpson | Green | 35 | 0.4% | 0.4% | N | Eliminated | ||||||
| Write-in | 40 | 0.4% | 0.4% | N | Eliminated | |||||||
| Exhausted | 0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | +147 | 151 | 1.7% | +455 | 606 | 6.7% | |||
| Total | 8980 | 100.0% | 8980 | 100.0% | 8980 | 100.0% | ||||||
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 aspoiler effect that would have occurred underplurality.[32]
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.[33][34] (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 theirranked-choice ballot.[32] 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.[35] 7% of ballots did not rank either of the candidates in the last round, leaving them unrepresented.[33][36]
Somemathematicians andvoting theorists criticized the election results as revealing severalpathologies associated withinstant-runoff voting, noting that Kiss was elected as a result of 750 votescast against him (ranking Kiss in last place).[37][38]
Severalelectoral reform advocates branded the election a failure after Kiss was elected despite 54% of voters voting for Montroll over Kiss,[39][40] violating the principle ofmajority rule.[34][41][42]
The results of every possible one-on-one election can be completed as follows:
 | Andy Montroll (D) | 6262 (Montroll) – 591 (Simpson) | 4570 (Montroll) – 2997 (Smith) | 4597 (Montroll) – 3664 (Wright) | 4064 (Montroll) – 3476 (Kiss) | 4/4 Wins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Bob Kiss (P) | 5514 (Kiss) – 844 (Simpson) | 3944 (Kiss) – 3576 (Smith) | 4313 (Kiss) – 4061 (Wright) | 3/4 Wins | |
 | Kurt Wright (R) | 5270 (Wright) – 1310 (Simpson) | 3971 (Wright) – 3793 (Smith) | 2/4 Wins | ||
 | Dan Smith (I) | 5570 (Smith) – 721 (Simpson) | 1/4 Wins | |||
 | James Simpson (G) | 0/4 Wins | ||||
This leads to an overall preference ranking of:
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.[43][44]
Because all ballots were fully released, it is possible to reconstruct the winners under other voting methods. While Wright would have won underplurality, Kiss won underIRV, and if they voted again the same way that they marked their preferential ballot, he would have won under atwo-round vote or a traditionalnonpartisan blanket primary.
Montroll, being theCondorcet winner, would have won if the ballots were counted usingranked pairs (or any otherCondorcet method).[45] Analyses suggested Montroll also would have won under mostrated voting methods, includingscore voting,approval voting,majority judgment, orSTAR voting.[citation needed]
2 March 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||
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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.[46] The initially "stagnant" repeal campaign drew renewed interest as Kiss became embroiled in a series of controversies.[47] 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.[48][49] 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 toBurlington Telecom and other local issues.[48] However, in an interview withVermont Public Radio, Kiss disputed that claim,[50] and those gathering signatures for the repeal stated that it was specifically a rejection of IRV itself.[48]
Locals argued the system was convoluted,[48] turned the 2009 election into a "gambling game" by disqualifying Montroll for having wontoo many votes,[38][51] and "eliminated the most popular moderate candidate and elected an extremist".[51]
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.[52]
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.[53][54][55] RepublicanGovernor 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."[47]
The repeal reverted the system back to a 40% rule that requires atop-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.[56]
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%,[57] 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.[58]
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 MayorMiro Weinberger the following month.[59] 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).[60][61][62] 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.[63] 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.[64][65][66]
successfully prevented the election of the candidate who would likely have won under plurality rules, but would have lost to either of the other top finishers in a runoff
election where Democratic candidate for mayor was Condorcet winner but finished third behind Republican and 'Progressive'
Figure: Percent of voters who made a 1st choice, 2nd choice, etc., 2006 and 2009 Burlington mayoral election. 2 choices = 83.5%
A display of non-monotonicity under the Alternative Vote method was reported recently, for the March 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, Vermont.
Although the Democrat was the Condorcet winner (a majority of voters preferred him in all two way contests), he received the fewest first-place votes and so was eliminated ... 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, VT, which illustrates the key features of an upward monotonicity failure
Montroll was favored over Republican Kurt Wright 56% to 44% ... and over Progressive Bob Kiss 54% to 46% ... In other words, in voting terminology, Montroll was a 'beats-all winner,' also called a 'Condorcet winner' ... However, in the IRV election, Montroll came in third! ... voters preferred Montroll over every other candidate ... Montroll is the most-approved
a majority of voters liked the centrist candidate Montroll better than Kiss, and a majority of voters liked Montroll better than Wright ... yet Montroll was tossed in the first round.
K was elected even though M was a clear Condorcet winner and W was a clear Plurality winner.
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.
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