Oh, hi.

Just to let you know: the Vermont General Assembly finished "the people's" business yesterday (Saturday, May 3rd). They didn't even bother with an attempted override of Governor Douglas' veto of S.108.

Back to my hibernation.

The Vermont House did pass S.108 (Vermont's instant runoff voting bill that originated in the Senate last year), and, as expected, Governor Douglas choose to veto it.

As I write this we're still awaiting a decision on a veto override attempt, but a successful outcome seems a dubious proposition. I'm going to rely on one thing: as a prognosticator I'm generally a miserable failure.

I'll post when I hear more.

In the meantime this blog will be going formally dormant. It will stay up mostly because there is a wealth of good information on the pages within. A good place to start is with the links on the right side as you scroll down.

Please let me know if you or your organization have any IRV related news you/it would like cross posted here. I'll be happy to oblige in most circumstances.

April 4, 2008

The Honorable David A. Gibson Secretary of the Senate State House 115 State St., Drawer 33 Montpelier, VT 05633

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Pursuant to Chapter II, Section 11 of the Vermont Constitution, I am returning S. 108, An Act Relating to the Election of U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator by the Instant Runoff Voting Method, without my signature because of objections described herein. There are serious flaws with this proposal to alter Vermont’s system of elections. This system has served the people of Vermont well for more than 200 years and is one I had the privilege of administering for a dozen years as Secretary of State. This bill circumvents the fundamental democratic principle of one person, one vote. That is entirely unacceptable. The authors of our Constitution applied this standard – compelling each voter to choose the candidate for each office that she or he deems most qualified – to ensure that elections are in fact a clear choice.

(Governor's website)

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Quoting the Progressive Party news letter:

Instant Runoff Voting, S.108, has passed the House and Senate. It is expected to hit the desk of Governor Douglas by the end of the week. While Douglas has publicly said that he does not like IRV, there are some signs that he may be willing to let it pass into law without his signature.

Douglas signed the last IRV bill sent to his desk, a Burlington charter change that took effect in 2006. Given IRV’s huge success in Burlington (99.9% valid ballots), a Douglas veto would say either democracy is good for Burlington but bad for the rest of the state, or IRV is bad for Vermont, but he doesn’t care about elections in Burlington.

There is wide support for IRV, from groups ranging from the League of Women Voters to the Utah State Republican Committee, from John McCain and Barack Obama, from the 53 of 56 towns that supported the change in past town meeting resolutions, and from the large number of phone calls coming into the Governor’s office over the past several days.

If majority winners in elections are important to you, please take time today to call Governor Douglas’ office at: 800-649-6825.

No better way to put it.

(Thank you Greg for the link fix.)

S.108 passed it's third reading in the Vermont House today! I don't know the details, but here's the Vermont legislative web site version.

Next step will be on to reconciling with the Senate's version (see this post for more), and then on to the Governor's desk where it is hoped he will sing on the dotted line.

Today is a great day to call Governor Douglas and tell him you want S.108 enacted into law.

Yeas - 81
Nays - 60

S.108 goes to third reading (tomorrow I believe).

At Tuesday's Vermont House Committee on Appropriation's quick hearing regarding Vermont's instant runoff voting bill, S.108 and changes (see yesterday's post), Vermont Deputy Secretary of State Bill Dalton provided some concise and direct support of IRV.

Among his comments:

IRV "complicates the ballot process a little bit." The SoC's office doesn't expect the runoff provisions of S.108 to be used very often (he used every 10 years as an example time line). Up front costs for S.108 will be around $90,000 with the bulk being used for public education and remainder for designing/printing ballots. The SoC's office is open to making use of volunteers in the public education effort.

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Thank yous to all the good people, with an emphasis on state Representative Chris Pearson (P) at this time, who put their time, efforts and cash into moving instant runoff voting forward in Vermont.

Yesterday the Vermont House Committee on Appropriations voted their version of S.108, Vermont's current IRV proposal, out of committee. According to Pearson he will be shepherding the bill onto the House floor tomorrow (Thursday).

More details below.

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