On March 5, voters in Burlington, Vermont, elected city council members. The Progressive Party gained two new seats, so now it has five of the twelve seats. The two new Progressives both unseated incumbents. The new Progressive Party members are Perri Freeman, who got 54% in a 3-way race, and Jack Hanson, who got 59% in a 2-way race.
Also, Progressive Party members won local elections in smaller municipalities. Nick Clark won for council in Thetford; Rodger Arnold and John Langhus in Norwich; Tim Guiles in Brandon; and Derek Larson for the Brandon School Board.
Way kewl! I guess everything is now FREE in Burlington!
Love winter elections in frozen VT.
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How about some progressive PR in B city ???
This is not accurate. One of the elected Progressives defeated an incumbent who had been elected as a Progressive but had been deflected by the party and was running as an independent. There are now five Progressives on the city council. Burlington has malapportioned districts based on based on voters turning out. There were almost twice as many votes cast in one district as there were in the smallest district. Burlington should adopt weighted voting where each city council member’s vote is proportional to the number of votes received by the council member. They could elect three members from each district, with votes from other candidates (4th, 5th, etc) transferring based on preferences of the eliminated candidates.
There are six Progressives if one counts Ali Dieng, who had the nominations of both the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party. The other Progressives, besides the two new ones, are Jane Knedell and Brian Pine and Max Tracy.
Jane Knodell (note spelling) was an incumbent who was defeated. She had been elected as a Progressive, but failed to win the nomination of the party. Nominations are made by caucus. She ran for re-election as an independent. She also said she felt liberated to be unfettered from the dictates of the party.