Vermont Progressive Party Elects Seven Legislators

On November 6, the Vermont Progressive Party elected two State Senators and five Representatives. The winning State Senate candidates are David Zuckerman and Anthony Pollina. The winning Representative candidates are Christopher Pearson, Cindy Weed, Susan Hatch Davis, Mollie Burke, and Sandy Haas.

All seven of these candidates showed that they are Progressive Party members, by listing the Progressive Party first on the November ballot. Vermont permits two parties to jointly nominate the same candidate, and some of the Progressive Party winners were nominated by both the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party. Vermont doesn’t have registration by party. Therefore, the only objective way to know which party a particular fusion candidate belongs to is to see how the candidate chooses to be listed on the ballot.

In Vermont, when a candidate is nominated by two parties, voters can’t use their vote to show which party they prefer. The candidate only appears on the ballot once, so there is only one square on the ballot to vote for him or her. This is referred to as “aggregated fusion”. By contrast, the type of fusion used in New York, Connecticut, and South Carolina, which lets the voter choose the party, is “disaggregated fusion.”


Comments

Vermont Progressive Party Elects Seven Legislators — 3 Comments

  1. According to the (admittedly incomplete) results from the Vermont SoS website, Tim Ashe, who was an incumbent Progressive state senator, was also re-elected, in the same county as David Zuckerman: http://az357346.vo.msecnd.net/resultsSW.aspx?type=SEN&map=MPRC. Only a little over half of the precincts are tallied on this total, so the numbers could have changed, though it does seem a little odd that Ashe, who was coming in 2nd, would have fallen to 7th or below as more votes were counted.

  2. Ah, I think I’ve figured out the discrepancy. Tim Ashe, while originally identified with the Progressive Party based on his time on the Burlington City Council and first term in the State Senate (where “Progressive” was listed as his first ballot line), in the 2010 and 2012 elections his ballot label was “Democratic/Progressive.” So under your method of calling it, Ashe would be a Democrat rather than a Progressive, yes?

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