Can Once-Maligned Ranked-Choice Voting Make a Comeback in Burlington?

This article discusses Burlington voters' attitudes toward reviving the ranked-choice voting system, citing RepresentWomen's 2022 RCV report. Read an excerpt below:

Along with Dean, Hightower is cochairing Better Ballot Burlington, an initiative run by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group to educate voters about the system. During a VPIRG webinar last week, Hightower said she supports ranked-choice voting because it has helped elect people who have been historically underrepresented.

Between 2010 and 2019, women candidates across the U.S. won nearly half of the 227 seats elected by ranked-choice; close to 40 percent of them were women of color, according to a report from RepresentWomen, an organization that aims to increase gender parity in politics.

Hightower, the first-ever woman of color to serve on the Burlington council, said she thinks ranked-choice voting could encourage more of her peers to seek office and help close the electability gap.

“Our society still has a preference for white men, and ranked-choice voting can’t fix that completely, but I think it can do a lot to start to undo that,” she said.

Read the full article here.

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