It’s crunch time for Burlington voters.
Residents only have a few days to mail their absentee ballots to ensure their votes will be counted in the city elections March 2 — elections that have drawn spirited attention over a hotly contested mayor’s race and a slew of debate-provoking ballot questions.
Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger faces strong challenges from City Council President Max Tracy, a Ward 2 Progressive, and Councilor Ali Dieng, a Ward 7 Independent.
The Vermont Legislature decided in mid-January that municipalities could mail ballots to all registered voters for Town Meeting Day elections in an effort to avoid crowding at the polls during the pandemic. Last week, ballots were sent to Burlington residents and they began arriving in the middle of this week, which gives voters only a few days to return those ballots by mail.
The Burlington City Clerk’s office is urging voters to mail their absentee ballots no later than Monday, Feb. 22. Or, voters can drop their ballots in drop boxes located across the city up until 4:30 p.m. on March 1. Voters can also bring their ballots to their polling place on March 2 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. and vote in-person.
This tight turnaround isn’t the result of any delays in the absentee ballot process, said Amy Bovee, Burlington assistant city clerk.
“It’s not so much that there were delays,” Bovee said. “What’s different is that local elections operate on a different timeline than general elections or statewide elections. The early voting period for a local election is generally only 20 days,” while in statewide elections, early or absentee ballots can be requested 45 days before the election.
Bovee said 25,746 ballots were sent out to Burlington voters. As of Friday afternoon, 849 had been returned. She said that was to be expected since ballots just reached voters this week.
“I expect that we will receive huge amounts of ballots over the course of the next week,” she said.
Former and current campaign strategists say this dynamic — in the midst of a pandemic — has both benefits and drawbacks when it comes to wooing voters.
Megan Polyte, who managed David Zuckerman’s campaign for governor last year, said the quick voting turnaround period might convey helpful urgency for voters to turn in their ballots. (Polyte is also running for inspector of elections in Ward 7.)
“I think the November election was really challenging because people got their ballot so early, 45 days before the election,” Polyte said. “And it was really challenging as a campaign, and for voters, to continue that momentum for so long and to make sure people didn’t lose their ballots and that they actually dropped them” in mailboxes or drop boxes.
She said she is concerned about ballots not getting to the city clerk’s office in time to be counted — due to the way the post office works — if they aren’t mailed by Feb. 22.
That’s one reason voter education is currently top-of-mind for the Tracy campaign, says Llu Mulvaney-Stanak, director of campaign resourcing for Tracy.
“What’s different about this Town Meeting Day is that the voter education piece is really totally different all over the state,” Mulvaney-Stanak said.
And while this is the third election Vermont has experienced since Covid took hold, each one has had different dynamics, so campaign strategy hasn’t been as transferable as one might think, Mulvaney-Stanak said.
For example, ballot drop boxes weren’t widely used in the primary election last August; they came later. For statewide elections, there was much more wide-scale voter education about how ballots were being issued. But for town meeting, Mulvaney-Stanak noted, these processes could be different for every town in the state.
Ballots were also being returned weeks in advance of Election Day for the statewide races — which isn’t an option for Town Meeting Day elections.
“In Burlington, it’s like, OK, how do we educate voters, how do we make sure people know it’s not just putting ballots back in the mail, you can walk it to these drop boxes until the day before. And or you can just walk it on the day of to the polling place,” Mulvaney-Stanak said. “So the strategy really is the education.”
‘You can’t knock on doors’
Burlington Democratic Party Chair Adam Roof said universal absentee voting for registered voters in the city could produce record-breaking Town Meeting Day participation, even though the pandemic has stripped candidates of some of the most compelling strategies in their campaign toolbox.
“You can’t knock on doors. Do you even do a lit drop?” Roof said, referring to brochures that volunteers deliver to homes, making their candidate’s case. “You can expect that there’ll be elevated turnouts as compared to prior local elections, with the mayor being on the ballot, but you also have a limited toolbox to activate those people or engage and persuade those people.”
And, while Burlington election officials are urging voters to mail their absentee ballots by Feb. 22, Roof said some voters might wait until March 1 or even March 2 to make their decisions. Some voters, he said, “like to wait right up until the end of the election because, as we know, with campaigns locally and above, interesting or important information comes up toward the end of an election.”
And there’s the CityPlace settlement, with a city council vote expected next week. Roof said voters might wait to see how mayoral candidates vote on the contentious development agreement before they make their pick.
The pandemic has led one candidate to take a new, and pricey, approach to the Burlington mayoral campaign. Weinberger unveiled a 30-second TV ad last Friday and bought $16,000 worth of airtime, according to campaign finance filings.
It’s unusual for local candidates to run TV ads, and this is the first time Weinberger has done so in his four reelection campaigns. And the move has drawn some criticism.
Polyte called Weinberger’s TV ad a “pretentious” move and an indicator he’s not connecting with voters enough at the grassroots level. She speculated that the ads, which will be seen by Vermonters outside of Burlington, might be a ploy to pull in outside fundraising.
Zuckerman, Polyte’s former boss, endorsed Tracy for mayor.
“If you’re out on the ground and you’re doing lit drops, and you’re running phone banks,” Polyte said, “you are much more in touch with the people of your city than if you’re doing paid TV ads.”
Mulvaney-Stanak agreed with Polyte’s concerns.
“He’s got a lot of money to burn and not a lot of easy ways to spend it because he didn’t invest in people and local, true campaigning grassroots efforts early enough,” Mulvaney-Stanak said.
They also said TV might be an outdated way to reach voters — largely older generations subscribe to cable news.
Samantha Sheehan, Weinberger’s campaign manager, said those critiques are incorrect. The TV ads are a way to reach voters where they’re at, she said, in a campaign where in-person interaction is severely limited, if not nonexistent.
“One aspect of this campaign that has been very different is that fundraising has not been a priority,” Sheehan said. “Miro started fundraising much later than he has in previous cycles because of the context of both the pandemic and the federal elections.”
Still, Weinberger has raised more money this year than in any previous campaign.
Sheehan said Weinberger has energized volunteers to write commentaries to support his campaign, connect with neighbors and participate in honk-and-waves.
“While some of the process has changed a little bit, the goal of the campaign is the same,” Sheehan said. “Which is to reach every voter in Burlington before election day with the important message that now’s the time to have proven leadership and Miro is the right candidate to vote for.”
