[B]URLINGTON — City councilors are mulling whether to let voters decide if a candidate’s party affiliation should continue to be included on the ballot in municipal elections.
A resolution passed last year directed the Charter Change Committee to consider drafting a charter change that would do away with the current party designation system. At a meeting Thursday night, councilors postponed a decision on the measure, but again debated its merits.
If the committee and the full council approves a change to the city’s charter, it would set up a vote for next Town Meeting Day on whether to keep party affiliation on the ballot for municipal elections.
Burlington has already done away with party designations for school board candidates following a charter change vote in 1990.
Councilor Adam Roof, I-Ward 8, who sponsored last year’s resolution, said the public should vote on whether they feel that the city still needs the designation system, and said he believes there are times when “the party-backed system gets in the way of governance.”
Younger voters are less beholden to the existing political parties and are interested in candidates who are “individual thinkers,” said Roof, who, as an independent, is not affiliated with a political party.
Councilor Joan Shannon, D-Southern District, said that if there was not a party assigned to a candidate, then some people would vote based on the perceived gender or ethnicity of a candidate’s name.
An important part of some voter’s decision is the values associated with a particular party and its platform, said Councilor Sara Gianonni, P-Ward 3.
Roof said their criticisms assume voters are uninformed about who they are choosing, and a government can’t work properly if decisions are made assuming the public is uninformed, he said.
While Roof said he sympathizes with councilors who feel the resolution would undercut their party identity, he said the change would not stop a candidate from running with support of their party. It would simply remove that information from the ballot, he said.
Roof also pointed out that the measure merely puts the questions to voters, and does not, on its own, end party designation on municipal ballots.
The decision to postpone a vote on the charter change was made in part to allow time for the city attorney’s office to investigate whether the move requires changing the city charter.
