BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – With three weeks to go until Town Meeting Day, Burlington officials on Tuesday began mailing out ballots to voters, and this year there are a few changes that residents should know about.
Burlington election officials say 23,000 ballots are being mailed to all registered voters in Burlington and ranked-choice voting will allow people to pick their top choices for candidates in order of preference.
“The most important part is people can vote for as many or as few candidates as they choose. So, if a voter only knows one of the candidates and only wants to vote for one, that’s completely fine. And then they also have the option of ranking other candidates as backup choices if their first choice candidate is eliminated,” said Burlington Assistant City Clerk Sarah Montgomery.
Another big change is the results of redistricting, which means some residents will now vote in different wards. That means they’ll also get a different ward ballot in the mail than they might expect.
Also new this year is a new law resulting from a charter change last year that allows all legal residents to vote in municipal elections.”We’re allowing our legal resident voters to register and vote. So, that means residents of Burlington who aren’t United States citizens have the opportunity to vote in the city election,” Montgomery said.
However, only citizens will be allowed to vote in the presidential primary, which is also taking place on Town Meeting Day.
If residents want to vote in that primary, they neeed to request a separate ballot from the clerk’s office, vote early at the clerk’s office, or on March 5. “This is a state election, and it’s logistically challenging because a voter needs to choose if they want to receive the Democratic or Republican ballot for the primary. So, we’re not really able to mail it to voters automatically because we don’t have that information for each voter,” Montgomery said.
Once voters receive their ballots, they can either return them to the clerk’s office by the paid postage envelope included with their mail-in ballot. They can also drop it off at one of five ballot drop boxes around the city, or at the clerk’s office. They can also bring them to a polling place on Town Meeting Day.
And while some towns will be delaying their school budget votes while the Legislature works on fixes to the education financing reform law passed last year, this will not impact Burlington, where the school district budget is already on the printed ballot. However, if lawmakers repeal the Act 127 tax cap, the cost per median $370,000 home will go from $749 to $836.