Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rick Hubbard, who is a native Vermonter, retired attorney and former economic consultant now living in South Burlington.
[I]n our November election, no candidate received more than half of the total votes (a majority). So the Legislature picks our governor in January.
Since the vote will be by secret ballot, we won’t even get to know how our own legislators voted if they choose not to disclose.
Ever wonder why it happens this way?
Our Vermont State Constitution, adopted in 1793 by white male property owners, strictly limited our right to vote.
For over 100 years, we voters weren’t even allowed to elect our own Vermont senators for Congress. Our Legislature selected them. It took a U.S. constitutional amendment, the 17th in 1913, to clearly vest that right with us.
Expanding our right to vote has taken much time and social struggle in Vermont and throughout the United States, but vestiges of that early culture remain, which is why our Legislature will usurp our rights as Vermont voters, and pick our next governor when it convenes in January.
Our Constitution effectively states our Nov. 4 votes for governor shall be brought to Montpelier and counted by a committee of our General Assembly, which shall declare the person who has the “major part” of the votes to be governor for the next two years.
A dictionary check of “major” gets interesting.
It’s normally defined as “greater in number” or a plurality, which suggests we voters have narrowly elected Peter Shumlin our governor, in which case our Legislature in January would simply declare our choice.
But occasionally it’s defined as “of or relating to the majority.”
To date, our Legislature has chosen to overlook the normal definition of “major” in favor of the much less used definition.
Strengthening our political system is both important and timely. Improvements here in Vermont can set an example for much needed repairs to our national political system.
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A subsequent part of our Vermont Constitution provides: “if, at any time, there shall be no election of Governor” the Legislature shall by ballot, elect to fill the office.
So by effectively declaring there was “no election for governor” when no candidate received a majority of the votes, our Legislature, for over 200 years, has claimed its constitutional right, to elect our governor themselves.
It’s time for Vermont voters to change this practice and amend our Vermont State Constitution to always have Vermont voters complete the process.
In doing this, we have a choice to make: Should we ensure that our next governor is backed by at least half of all voters casting ballots, a majority, or should we select whichever candidate gets the most votes, a plurality?
Which approach best strengthens our political process to serve the interests of all Vermonters?
We normally have multiple candidates running for governor, and this past November we had seven. Typically, with votes split among multiple candidates, if becomes difficult for any one candidate to secure a majority of votes on a first ballot.
Our recent November election provides a good example of this.
With many candidates, selecting whom to vote for is tricky if it only takes a plurality to win. We might not choose to vote for the candidate we really want, if our favorite isn’t one of the two candidates we think most likely to win. After all, voting for our first choice may then help to elect our worst choice!
Thankfully, there’s another way we can solve this problem.
As we amend our Vermont State Constitution we can simply require that the winning candidate obtain a majority of the total votes cast.
This result can be reached in several ways. For example, we could have a run-off election of the two top vote-getters, or use instant runoff voting to rank the candidates in order of preference, thus saving the expense and delay of having a second, run-off election.
Let’s have our Legislature decide these details of which approach would best meet a new constitutional requirement of a majority of the total votes.
This same approach could be used to elect ALL of our political representatives. That way, every candidate we elect will have more than half of all voters validating them as our legislative leaders.
Strengthening our political system is both important and timely. Improvements here in Vermont can set an example for much needed repairs to our national political system.
Article 7 of our Vermont Constitution effectively states that government exists to serve the broad public interests of its people, and its people have the right to improve it whenever necessary.
There’s a need for improvement. Let’s get on with it!