Ranked choice voting is coming to Burlington next March. Here's how it will work.

Lilly St. Angelo, Burlington Free Press
·2 min read

Burlington voters will use ranked choice voting in the next City Council elections in March. But how will it work and what are the benefits?

The Burlington City Council passed an ordinance Monday that officially hashed out the details of the "instant runoff retabulation" system. Here are the steps that will be taken when Burlingtonians go to vote for their city councilors.

Step 1: Voters will rank their candidate options on their ballot from the candidate they most want to win to the candidate they least want to win.

Step 2: Election officials will tally first-choice votes. If a candidate wins the majority (over 50% of the votes), they win. If no candidate wins the majority of votes, officials proceed to Step 3.

Williston residents are told to "Vote Here" at the armory on Williston Rd. for Town Meeting Day, March 1, 2022.
Williston residents are told to "Vote Here" at the armory on Williston Rd. for Town Meeting Day, March 1, 2022.

Step 3: The candidate with the fewest number of first-choice votes is taken out of the running. The votes of people who voted for the now-out-of-the-running candidate are now transferred to whoever they ranked as their second choice.

Step 4: After these votes are added to each remaining candidates' totals, there is another tally taken. If no one still has a majority, the one with the fewest number of votes among the remaining candidates is taken out of the running and votes are redistribute to voters' next choices. This process is repeated until only two candidates remain. The one with with the most votes wins.

Gov. Phil Scott allowed the charter change, which had to be approved by the Legislature, to take effect without his signature. The governor said in his letter to lawmakers that he was letting the charter change happen because the ranked choice voting will only be used in Burlington City Council elections.

The charter change was approved by more than two-thirds of Burlington voters.

Scott noted that the last time Burlington had ranked choice voting, from 2005 to 2010, the system yielded "flawed results."

Proponents of ranked choice voting say that it eliminates the dilemma of vote-splitting when more than two candidates run for an office, gives voters more choice and supports the idea that officials should earn a majority of votes to be elected.

Contact Urban Change Reporter Lilly St. Angelo at lstangelo@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @lilly_st_ang

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Burlington ranked choice voting: Here's how council elections will work