Oh, the delicious irony!

The Burlington Free Press reported Friday, January 22 on the potential internal conflict in the local Republican party.  Kurt Wright and Kevin Curley, both former mayoral candidates, may be jostling for position against Russ Ellis, and part of the concern is that if both run, they could split the Republican vote and Ellis would win re-election in Ward 4.  Now... if the election of City councilors used instant runoff (IRV), as in the mayoral election, Wright and Curley could both run without unduly harming each other.  They would, in fact, likely help one another because Republicans who would come out to vote for Wright but not Curley, or Curley or not Wright, would all come out to rank "their" candidate first, and then likely prefer the other Republican to Ellis.  Instead, one or the other will likely step down for the good of the party's chances to take the seat, and so instead of letting the voters of Ward 4 directly choose between Ellis, Wright, and Curley, a lack of IRV at the the City councilor level (with a generous dollop of party politics) will remove Curley or Wright, and Ward 4 will lose for not having a wider array of candidates to choose from.


The irony here, of course, is that Wright is an important voice in the effort to repeal IRV in the mayoral election. We get what we ask for: if we repeal IRV, we the voters will have *less* direct say in choosing our representatives, since the "old" system strongly discourages multiple potential candidates from the same party from running simultaneously. I, for one, will be voting to keep IRV.