Wednesday, March 08, 2006

VERMONT MAYOR TO BE ELECTED BY INSTANT RUNOFF

AP - Runoff elections are typically cumbersome processes, taking weeks and sometimes months to determine a winner. Burlington is going to do it all instantly. In an innovation known as instant-runoff voting, the results of Tuesday's five-candidate election for mayor and whatever runoffs are needed to settle it will all be known soon after polls close. For the first time in a mayoral election in the United States, voters will mark their ballots for their favorite candidate, along with their second, third, fourth and fifth choices. If none of the five gets 50 percent of the vote on the first round, the candidate with the lowest vote total would be eliminated. Then the second choice of the voters who made that candidate their initial pick would be counted, and so on. "As soon as somebody gets to 50 percent, it stops," said Jo LaMarche, the city's election director.

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