Editor’s note: This commentary is by Sen. David Zuckerman, a Progressive who represents Chittenden District in the Vermont Senate. He is vice chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and a member of the Committee on Education. He is co-owner with his wife of an organic community supported agriculture farm in Hinesburg.
[A]s we reflect on the outcome of the legislative vote for Vermont governor, I thought it would be good to reflect on what happened and express my disappointment that it turned out to be a result relatively close to party lines. In this commentary, I outline how I came to my conclusion as to who to vote for and I also discuss why I think the Constitution should not be changed to allow a lower threshold than 50 percent. While there are various ways to get to 50 percent, and that discussion is important, we will save that for another day.
For starters, I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, this is not partisan interpretation for me. I believe that some of the remarks that have had partisan inclinations can and will also lead to some interesting reflection when other scenarios are presented.
So lets begin:
The system is not broken. It was designed for exactly this kind of scenario, more than two viable candidates leading to no majority winner. Just because we in the Legislature had a difficult decision does not mean the system is broken. We address complicated issues all the time, and this was another one that we were able to figure out. This constitutional provision allows for multiple people of similar ideology to run regardless of party labels. Thus, sometimes someone receiving the second most votes can and possibly should win. Changing it would make general elections more partisan, not less. If Vermonters truly believe that most voters are independent, then we need to continue the system that allows for people to run independently of the dominant two party system unhindered by the term spoiler, etc. This is true whether a candidate runs as a Libertarian, Progressive, Liberty Union, or any other label.
As for the particulars of this decision:
My decision in this election is not about who I agree with more, it is about trying to ascertain what the will of the voters across the state were trying to tell us. As elected leaders, our job is to try to do what is, in our judgment, best for the state. In this instance we should look at the statewide results because our legislative districts are created with varying degrees of constituents per legislator, so voting by district actually could give some voters more or less say in the result denying the age old adage “one person, one vote.”
So, are there times when we could … and should … elect the person who comes in second? Yes.
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As an analogy, I viewed our job like that of a referee in an NFL football game who is reviewing a call on the field with a Coach’s Challenge. In order to overturn the first result, there has to be clear evidence to do so. The initial result is the vote tally from the election. The review is to see if there are clear ways to parse out the voters’ will from different angles. If there was clear evidence to overturn the call, then we would have done so, otherwise, the play stands as initially indicated by the Nov. 4 results.
In this instance the evidence was not clear. Were there a number of votes for Mr. Feliciano that many would reasonably interpret would mostly go to Mr. Milne if there were a run-off? Probably. Were there a number of people who went to the polls, but did not vote in this race because they thought Gov. Shumlin was going to win big and did not want to add to his “mandate”? Probably. Were there other candidates who also accumulated enough votes to “make the difference” and put one of the two over 50 percent but for whom making assumptions would be difficult? Yes. Were there Vermonters on either side of this scenario who did not vote because they thought the race was a done deal? Yes. So how are we to review the “play” and somehow assess that if all the votes were redistributed and if voters knew this or that (policy or the numbers game) what the different outcome would have been? We could not. For these reasons, I do not think we had evidence to overturn the plurality winner.
But I think some Democrats were too quick with their words to say that “the plurality winner should always win.” That is too simplistic … and will catch them in a trap in the future. With the strength of the Progressive Party and some strong candidates, it could well be that there is a split in the near future whereby the Republican will come in first and either the Democrat or Progressive will come in second. This occurred once in the past. So this kind of event can happen with either the Republicans or the Democrats coming in second.
The same scenario that traps the Democrats will also catch the Republicans in the future. If they firmly believe that with voter signals the second place person should win, then they too should look back in history and reflect what they were thinking 13 years ago. How many of them said that Peter Shumlin should have won the lieutenant governor’s race in 2002 as opposed to Brian Dubie? I would hazard very few. But their logic in this current scenario would certainly point to their supporting Shumlin in that past election.
So, are there times when we could … and should … elect the person who comes in second? Yes.
We have the example from this very century. In the 2002 lieutenant governor’s race, Brian Dubie received 41 percent, Peter Shumlin received 32 percent and Anthony Pollina received 25 percent. The combined vote of Shumlin and Pollina was 57 percent to the Dubie’s 41 percent. That result would far more clearly meet the “evidence to overturn the call” analogy that I started with. Even if assumptions were off by 5 percent the numbers would have still indicated that Shumlin should have been elected 52 percent to 46 percent. The other lower result candidates do not even need to be speculated in that election. But, sadly that debate did not occur for a variety of political reasons. Gov. Shumlin said what some Democrats said this time around, simplistically, that the plurality candidate should win.
This system was designed for us to use our judgment. When we remove ourselves from looking at it through partisan lenses and use basic math and logic, we can see that there are times when the plurality candidate should not win and times when they should. Ultimately we can and probably should alter the Constitution to allow for the voters to decide. But when we do, it should still require 50 percent to win so that we can continue to have more voices in the debates. In the meantime, we can make rational and reasonable interpretations when we look at it based on numbers and not through our ideological glasses.