On the heels of the successful use of Instant Runoff Voting in Burlington, Vt. the losing candidate finds herself at odds with the growing consensus in Vermont about using IRV.
Perspective: Second-choice candidates deserve voters' scrutiny
By Darren Allen
March 19, 2006, Times Argus
One of the biggest questions opponents of instant
runoff voting need to answer is, "What are you afraid of?"
Sen. Hinda Miller, the Burlington Democrat who
lost her bid for mayor in a race that featured
instant runoff voting for the first time, said
the whole process has left her bruised and dismayed.
She told her colleagues in the state Senate last
week that while she does not dispute the results
- Rep. Robert Kiss, a Burlington Progressive, led
on both the first and second ballots - she
wondered whether the whole process left voters
susceptible to undue influence by the candidates.
"I as a candidate couldn't figure out how to game
the system, and it is a game," she said. "I personally found it very scary."
The heart of her fear was the belief that her
Republican opponent, longtime city councilor
Kevin Curley, had told his supporters to mark
Kiss as their second choice. Indeed, Curley
boasted after the election that even though he
didn't win, he saved the city from a Hinda Miller administration.
"This changes how candidates have to think about
ourselves," she said. "I don't think candidates
ought to be able to influence people like that.
That is not what we are about in this country."
Such sentiments should leave voters wondering
whether this major-party candidate has much faith
in their intelligence. After all, what did she
think the endorsements and sizable campaign war
chests of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democratic
National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, outgoing
Mayor Peter Clavelle were supposed to do? Influence voters' decisions?
Of course they were.
rest of story
In other words, it appeared that instant runoff
voting worked: The candidate who got the most votes won.
Instant runoff voting worked so well in
Burlington that its supporters are hoping to
introduce it to statewide races. It is a proposal
that is long overdue. In Vermont, if statewide
office seekers fail to reach a majority, then the
180 lawmakers get to make the call. That's hardly
a recipe for participatory democracy.
and the Rutland Herald
Voting instantly
March 17, 2006, Rutland Herald editorial
This year the Burlington mayor's election
employed a method called instant runoff voting --
or IRV -- and the results are being touted as
proof both of the benefits and dangers of the new method.
Sen. Hinda Miller was the Democratic candidate
for mayor, and she had advantages in both money
and endorsements. But in the initial round, she
lost to the Progressive candidate, Rep. Robert
Kiss, by a margin of 39-31 percent. The
Republican, Kevin Curley, finished third.
Because the leading vote-getter failed to win 40
percent of the total, there was a runoff --
instantly. Voters had the option of marking their
second choice on the ballot, so ballots cast for
Curley were examined, and the second-choice votes
were tallied. Those votes gave Kiss the win over Miller by a margin of 56-48.
Miller testified before the Legislature that this
process was confusing and prone to manipulation.
A good number of Republicans, it turned out, had
made Kiss their second choice. Was this nefarious?
In fact, the results in Burlington were not so
surprising. Democrats have failed to win since
Bernard Sanders' historic 12-vote victory over
old-guard Democrat Gordon Paquette in 1981. With
the exception of one term by Republican Peter
Brownell, the mayor's office has been occupied by
socialist Sanders or Progressive Peter Clavelle
since Sanders' first win. Burlington voters are
used to rejecting the appeal of establishment
Democrats who come to them with endorsements by party bigwigs.
Did IRV help Kiss? There may have been some
voters who made Kiss their first choice knowing
they could make Miller their second choice, thus
averting a win by the Republican Curley. In other
words, IRV allowed Progressives to support Kiss
without fear of throwing the race to the
candidate whom they favored the least. But if
more Burlington voters favored Kiss, why shouldn't they cast ballots for him?
The more curious question is why a significant
number of voters who cast ballots for Curley made
Kiss their second choice. Was it an "Anyone but
Miller" vote? It is possible that some
Republicans favored Kiss for reasons that went
beyond where he fell on the political spectrum.
In any event, the runoff in Burlington confirmed
the election of the one who finished first in the
voting in the first count. That does not seem nefarious.
IRV allows parties beyond the big two to play a
larger role in elections, and thus it is likely
to help the Progressives. That makes Democrats
nervous about efforts to employ IRV in statewide
elections. They needn't be. It is likely that in
many places, Progressives would be in the
position of the Republicans in Burlington -- the
third party. IRV would probably free some voters
from the fear that voting for a Progressive would
help elect a Republican. But those voters would
probably not be inclined to vote for a Republican as their second choice.
There are constitutional questions about how best to incorporate the IRV into statewide elections,
but it would seem that IRV, as it did in
Burlington, would allow voters to make more
nuanced decisions and would bring in a greater
diversity of possibilities, forcing candidate to
listen to a wide range of views. That doesn't seem to be a bad thing..
The Vermont state legislature is getting very
interested in taking action on implementing
instant runoff voting for statewide elections.
Groups like Vermont PIRG, Vermont League of Women
Voters and Vermont Common Cause are among those strongly supportive.