2009 Burlington mayoral election

In March 2009, the city of Burlington, Vermont held a mayoral election. Progressive Bob Kiss was elected, despite a 54% majority of voters expressing a preference for Democrat Andy Montroll over Kiss. As a result of the surprise outcome of the election, Burlington voters narrowly voted to repeal IRV, reverting to their prior system of holding a runoff if no candidate receives over 40% of the vote.

Pairwise results

This is the results of the Burlington, Vermont mayoral election of 2009 had they used a pairwise method:

	Andy Montroll (Democratic Party) |	4 wins and no losses					4 Wins ↓
	Bob Kiss (Vermont Progressive Party)	3 wins, 1 loss (3-1)				1 Loss → ↓ 3 Wins	4064 (Montroll) – 3476 (BK)
	Kurt Wright (Republican Party)	2 wins, 2 losses (2-2)			2 Losses → 2 Wins ↓	4313 (BK) – 4061 (KW)	4597 (Montroll) – 3664 (KW)
	Dan Smith (Independent)	1 win, 3 losses (1-3)		3 Losses → 1 Win ↓	3971 (KW) – 3793 (DS)	3944 (BK) – 3576 (DS)	4570 (Montroll) – 2997 (DS)
	James Simpson (Green Party)	0 wins, 4 losses (0-4)	4 Losses →	5570 (DS) – 721 (JS)	5270 (KW) – 1310 (JS)	5514 (BK) – 844 (JS)	6262 (Montroll) – 591 (JS)

This leads to an overall preference ranking of:

1. Montroll – defeats all candidates below, including Kiss (4,064 to 3,476)
2. Kiss – defeats all candidates below, including Wright (4,313 to 4,061)
3. Wright – defeats all candidates below, including Smith (3,971 to 3,793)
4. Smith – defeats Simpson (5,570 to 721) and the write-in candidates

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.

Results with Copeland and First-Past-the-Post

Below are the theoretical results of using different mechanisms other than IRV.

2009 Burlington mayoral election

• Election Format Version: 0.1
• Candidates:
  • Bob Kiss (Progressive)
  • Andy Montroll (Democrat)
  • Dan Smith (Independent)
  • James Simpson (Green)
  • Write-in
  • Kurt Wright (Republican)

Ballots

Total votes: 8980

(see 2009 Burlington, Vermont Mayoral Election data for the raw ballots used to generate the results below).

Results

Copeland method

The winner using the Copeland method is Montroll

Detailed Results

In Copeland, the candidate which beats all other candidates in pairwise matchups wins the election. In the event no such candidate exists, the candidate with the best win-loss-tie record wins the election.

Voting results of pairwise matchups:

Bob Kiss (Progressive) Loss 3477 to 4067 vs. Montroll Win 3946 to 3577 vs. Smith Win 5517 to 845 vs. Simpson Win 6149 to 116 vs. Write-in Win 4314 to 4064 vs. Wright	Andy Montroll (Democrat) Win 4067 to 3477 vs. Kiss Win 4573 to 2998 vs. Smith Win 6267 to 591 vs. Simpson Win 6658 to 104 vs. Write-in Win 4597 to 3668 vs. Wright	Dan Smith (Independent) Loss 3577 to 3946 vs. Kiss Loss 2998 to 4573 vs. Montroll Win 5573 to 721 vs. Simpson Win 6057 to 117 vs. Write-in Loss 3793 to 3975 vs. Wright
James Simpson (Green) Loss 845 to 5517 vs. Kiss Loss 591 to 6267 vs. Montroll Loss 721 to 5573 vs. Smith Win 3338 to 165 vs. Write-in Loss 1309 to 5274 vs. Wright	Write-in Loss 116 to 6149 vs. Kiss Loss 104 to 6658 vs. Montroll Loss 117 to 6057 vs. Smith Loss 165 to 3338 vs. Simpson Loss 163 to 6063 vs. Wright	Kurt Wright (Republican) Loss 4064 to 4314 vs. Kiss Loss 3668 to 4597 vs. Montroll Win 3975 to 3793 vs. Smith Win 5274 to 1309 vs. Simpson Win 6063 to 163 vs. Write-in

Win-Loss-Ties:

• Montroll: 5-0-0
• Kiss: 4-1-0
• Wright: 3-2-0
• Smith: 2-3-0
• Simpson: 1-4-0
• Write-in: 0-5-0

Plurality (a.k.a. First Past the Post)

The winner using the Plurality is Wright.

Detailed Results

The results below were calculated using Plurality (a.k.a. First Past the Post). When using ballots that allow for ratings, the top rated candidate is chosen. If there is more than one candidate with the highest rating, the ballot is considered invalid and is not counted.

Votes:

	Total Score
Bob Kiss (Progressive)	2585
Andy Montroll (Democrat)	2063
Dan Smith (Independent)	1306
James Simpson (Green)	35
Write-in	36
Kurt Wright (Republican)	2951

Infographic

Source file: File:Burlington2009election-infosheet.svg. Original file history: https://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/File:Burlington2009election-infosheet.svg#filehistory

hashtag "#Visual depiction of IRV results"

To the right is an infographic which attempts to clearly depict the pairwise results in a tidy SVG diagram. Well, actually, it's a scaled down PNG, so it's a little hard to read. If you click it. it'll expand.

Here is a link to the SVG version in a few different forms:

• File link on this wiki (as of 00:18, 21 July 2020 (UTC)):
  • File:Burlington2009election-infosheet.svg
    • Note: ^This link may turn into something enormous, because the SVG has a pretty big svg width and height (width="765" height="990") User:RobLa made it with Inkscape years ago, and User:Psephomancy uploaded it to electowiki in 2018 (and didn't strictly follow the terms of the CC by-sa license, but hopefully User:RobLa won't file a copyright infringement suit ;-))
• Static link (as of 00:18, 21 July 2020 (UTC)):
  • https://static.miraheze.org/electowikiwiki/9/90/Burlington2009election-infosheet.svg
    • Note: ^This may or may not work in some browsers, but it works pretty well in Mozilla Firefox.
• Static PNG:
  • (fill me in)

Further analysis

• Brian Olson's analysis of the election

Pairwise tallies for each of the candidates are available on the following subpages:

• Schulze (Condorcet) results among Bob Kiss (P) voters
• Schulze (Condorcet) results among Andy Montroll (D) voters
• Schulze (Condorcet) results among Dan Smith (I) voters
• Schulze (Condorcet) results among Kurt Wright (R) voters