BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – This week’s Town Meeting Day brought nearly 15,000 Burlington residents to the polls, one of the highest turnouts in recent years, thanks to a hotly contested, historic mayoral race and new taxes on the ballot.
Compared to the last two election years when Burlington decided on a mayor, Tuesday was tops for turnout — about 46% compared to 39% in 2021 and 33% in 2018.
Close to half of those who voted were by absentee, either by mail or returned on election day. So, was it the 24,000 ballots mailed to each household or the issues that turned out the vote?
Bert Johnson, a political science professor at Middlebury College says that research shows mailing ballots doesn’t always translate into higher voter turnout. “Of course, we want people to have access to these tools if they can’t vote in any other way, but it may be less useful to, you know, blanket mail things to everybody, because not everybody really needs to use this method, especially not during a time like this when we are not in the acute stage of the pandemic,” he said.
It can also be costly. The city spends around $80,000 mailing out ballots. It’s a policy decision the City Council made in light of the pandemic to allow better access to voting. While it has allowed absentee ballots to become more popular, Johnson says part of voting is the civic activity of going to the polls. “People vote more often if they are members of more social groups, and that’s because they’re talking to their social groups about voting, and voting itself is a social act. If you go to the polls, you might see your neighbors, you might see poll watchers that you see every time there’s an election. You see what’s going on, there’s activity, it’s kind of fun,” he said.
The election for the first time also included all legal residents, even those who aren’t citizens, to cast their ballots. Of the 102 people who fit that category, 62 took advantage of the new system.
“We had campaigns that were going out and specifically registering our noncitizen resident voters. We also had neighbors that are really invested in just helping everybody in their community understand that they have the right to vote now and helping them register and cast that vote.,” said Burlington Asst. City Clerk Sarah Montgomery.