Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) petition

We, the undersigned voters of the City of Burlington, do hereby petition the Mayor and the Burlington City Council to warn a special city meeting to place the following question on the ballot:

“Shall Section 5 of the Burlington City Charter, Acts of 1949 #298 as amended be further amended as follows:

(a) The election of the mayor, all city councilors and school commissioners shall be by ballot, and the person or persons receiving a plurality of all votes cast for any office aforesaid shall, except as hereinafter provided, be declared elected thereto. However, if no person receives at least 40 percent of all votes cast for any office aforesaid, no one shall be declared elected and a runoff election shall be held. The only candidates in the runoff election shall be the two persons receiving the greater number of votes or, in case of a tie, the persons receiving the greatest number of votes or the persons receiving the second greatest number of votes. The chief administrative officer shall within seven days warn a runoff election to be held not less than 12 days nor more than 20 days after the date of the warning. The warning shall be published in a newspaper of general circulation in the city and posted in a public place. The person or persons receiving a plurality of all the votes cast in a runoff election shall be declared elected.

(b) All elections of mayor shall be by ballot, using a system of instant runoff voting without a separate runoff election. The chief administrative officer shall implement an instant runoff voting protocol according to these guidelines:
(1) The ballot shall give voters the option of ranking candidates in order of preference.
(2) If a candidate receives a majority (over 50 percent) of first preferences, that candidate is elected.
(3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, an instant runoff retabulation shall be performed by the board of civil authority within five business days of the election. The instant runoff retabulation shall be conducted in rounds. In each round, each voter's ballot shall count as a single vote for whichever continuing candidate the voter has ranked highest. The candidate with the fewest votes after each round shall be eliminated until only two candidates remain, with the candidate then receiving the greatest number of votes being elected.
(4) The city council may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards. ?”


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