2009 Burlington mayoral election
The 2009 Burlington mayoral election was held in March 2009 for the city of Burlington, Vermont. A few years earlier, the city had switched to holding mayoral elections every three years (e.g. the 1997 election, the 2000 election, the 2003 election, and the 2006 election), so this was the second mayoral election since the city's 2005 change to instant-runoff voting (IRV). In the 2009 election, incumbent Burlington mayor (Bob Kiss) won reelection as a member of the Vermont Progressive Party. Unlike in the city's first IRV mayoral election three years prior, however, Kiss was neither the plurality winner (since Republican candidate Kurt Wright won a plurality of first-place votes) nor the Condorcet winner (Democratic candidate Andy Montroll was the pairwise winner). This 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%. Ranked-choice voting would thus remain unused in Burlington until 2021, when voters again adopted IRV for all city council elections (but not mayoral ones) by a vote of 64% to 36%. Background The city of Burlington, Vermont approved IRV for use in mayoral elections with a 64% vote in 2005, at a time when IRV was only used in a few local elections in the United States. The 2006 Burlington mayoral election 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). Candidates Bob Kiss (P), incumbent mayor (elected in 2006) seeking second term Andy Montroll (D), then current member of the Burlington City Council Dan Smith (I), lawyer James Simpson (G), owner of human-powered transportation services company in Burlington Kurt Wright (R), then current City Councilor and State Representative Results 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: Analysis of the 2009 election The IRV election is considered a success by IRV advocates such as FairVote, asserting it prevented the election of the first round plurality leader, Wright. It avoided the effect of vote-splitting between the candidates Kiss and Montroll that might have prevented the election of one or other of them, instead of Wright, the initial front runner. was easy for voters to understand, avoided the need for traditional runoffs, and "contributed to producing a campaign among four serious candidates that was widely praised for its substantive nature". Montroll, according to