you can see planes on sites like flightradar24, it'll tell you who owns them and everything. plus how high they actually are and where they're coming from/going - you might be surprised to see how many planes are coming from/to Europe!

very, very unlikely that's a private jet though. I mean it depends how high they actually are, but a private jet flown by their owner is incredibly rare even among Uber rich who charter private jets. and none who have them are gonna be fucking around at low altitude - definitely sounds like military training.

the only one I know of in VT is the CEO of miracle grow who has a couple hangers in Springfield. private jet and a couple other cool planes

is it actually compounded? by how much? you’re not presenting statistics of how many homes which would have otherwise been on the market for long term rental have instead moved to short term. i hear a lot of anecdotal reports and whining but no actual evidence of the problem’s size

the issue is housing in general. this isn't unique to vermont.

how many AirBNBs laid simply dormant for 6 months of the year before, but are now rented out just in the winter when the boomer owners go down to florida to stay warm? vs how many are actually bought just for short term rental? I'm sure I'll get a ton of anecdotal replies to this comment and no actual statistics. I don't know if these statistics actually even exist or not to be fair though.

i'm not a property owner btw

> based on their skin color

people in the 1790s also said "its the experiences I've had with these people that drive my hate for them, it's not their skin color!!!"

that's what modern day racists say too...

it's a terrible analogy, to be honest. it's not really analogous at all, except for the fact that one person's lived experiences are a terrible way to give basis to an entire town (ie, "I got robbed in Brandon! Brandon sucks and is high crime!" well no, you just had one bad experience there...).

your "experiences" were already colored by hate for the town from the beginning.

people hate rutland for the same reason people hate nickelback. it's the thing to do.

yeah in 1790 people said "most people I know think black people suck" so i guess we should never go against the status quo, right?

no. less popular parties will get MORE votes. this is literally the basis of how it helps (but does not prevent or totally dissuade from) two party rule

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

this is discussed under "resistance to tactical voting"

and fun fact, this is under "voter confusion":

> Research shows that voters in general can understand and use IRV. Various surveys in the U.S. found 80%–90% of voters reported understanding the ballot very well, and 90% reported it was easy to use. Voter comprehension increased with repeated use, eliminating demographic disparities over time. Older voters were more likely to say they found the system confusing, but in practice correctly completed IRV ballots at the same rate.[20]

so education isn't really a big deal either

this is known as an ad hominem attack. no substance in this comment at all except insults.

> He seems very upset with the perception people has of it

it's pretty annoying coming online and seeing your nice little town get dumpstered on for exactly the same problems that any small town in rural america has, yet gets singled out as "oh no, not rut vegas!!!!!!!".

there are plenty of legitimate reasons to question Rutland, but people choose low-hanging fruit that applies to every single town in rural America instead of actually putting thought behind their words.

"gotta love rutland" implies that rutland has more and worse problems than other small towns, when in reality it's a pretty normal town with normal problems.

> In VT IRV would actually likely lead to 1 party rule. The GOP would stop being a viable party. Progressives would pick up some of the democrats, but democrats would pick up almost all of the independents/centrists AND conservative voters who no longer have a viable candidate. One party rule is even worse than 2.

No? What? This is just wrong. Why would democrats pick up people voting independent? It's the other way around: People who voted democrat, even though they supported, say, a progressive candidate instead, would now put that progressive candidate as #1 and the democrat (who they previously would have voted for) as #2. Same with any popular party: Lesser parties will, in general, get more votes now.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how and why ranked-choice voting works.

> We don’t have FPTP voting, so I’m not sure the relevance of that. You can’t win with a plurality (see Shumlin v Milne 2014) or any traditional runoff really.

We have FPTP voting. Plurality vs majority doesn't matter, it's still FPTP. And more importantly, I'm not aware of any cases where a plurality was reached and the person who was runner-up didn't cede the election - so we effectively have a plurality anyway. This is a distinction without a difference - it doesn't matter if it's majority or plurality on paper because it has always been plurality in practice.

> mail out balloting negates the “saves time” benefit

no it doesn't. mailing out ballots still takes a ton of labor. it's less than in-person, sure, but it's still there. you can say "mitigate" maybe, but definitely not negate.

> and it won’t disrupt the 2 party system

It won't fully disrupt it, it will help break it up and placate the spoiler effect. It will do better than what we have now.

Are you on a computer? Not sure.

You can also just type in whatever after the > and it'll show up as a comment

(ps, if you want > or any other markdown symbol to appear, you need to put a backslash before it, so you'd type this \> to get this > to appear)

> As long as there are parties involved, I don’t believe there will ever be more than two viable candidates. The current system allows for more than two parties but human nature is to align with others, that share similar beliefs to maximize power, which is always going to lead to 2 groups only.

Actually, no. The two party system is 100% due to our current voting system and how it works, not just simple human nature. This is a fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

Under "Effects on political parties and societies", it mentions Duverger's law. Essentially, the two-party system only exists because of this style of voting. Ranked hcoice won't totally eliminate it, but it'll remove a few of the contributing factors such as the spoiler effect (see: ralph nader taking some of Al Gore's votes, making Bush win even though Nader voters would have preferred Al Gore).

> If everyone was an independent and not beholden to a party platform

then people would start grouping those independent people as "gun supporters", "socially liberal", etc etc, until you've got a list of labels that describe a general group of people. you've not got parties again. having political parties grouped around general beliefs is unavoidable: having only two of those parties dominate, however, IS avoidable.

i went to brandon and got robbed BRANDON IS A BAD TOWN

> I don’t see two party rule as any more of a problem than 3 party rule.

You think that having fewer viable options is the same as having more viable options? I'm not sure how to respond to that. That's pretty ridiculous. If you don't like the mainline dem/rep candidate now, you're fucked. If there were 5 options, you could have someone your beliefs more closely aligned to to vote with.

It's not "5 party rule" at that point. That's just having five different candidate options. Maybe some are the same party, maybe they aren't.

> All im saying is ive never had the inspection sticker stolen off my car in my home town, 25 miles away.

golly I sure love anecdotal, tiny sample size remarks used to judge 16,000 people off of 1 person's actions. very defensible argument you have there!

> But it is objectively shittier than the surrounding towns.

it's on par with most. worse than some. better than others. its fine. its average. it's not some particular den of scum and villainy.

its not even any more shithole than any other town in the area. it is completely average, not "LOL RUTLAND SHITHOLE XDDD". it's a generic small town with generic small town problems. it's gotten leaps and bounds better in the last decade, and it's on track to get leaps and bounds better again in the next.

> If we held runoffs by holding them again and again until we got to 50%, but that’s not actually how it’s done. There are only ever two rounds, the election and then a runoff between the top two candidates.

But that's a terrible system! It encourages two-party rule, and enforces the spoiler effect. There will NEVER be a competitive 3rd party with this rule, because if you vote for a candidate that's unlikely to win, you're effectively giving a vote to the side you dislike, pulling a vote away from the side you DO like.

> Let’s pretend we’ve got Sanders, Warren, Gabbard, Clinton, Biden. I really don’t want to vote for Sanders because he’s my neighbor and I don’t like him, and Clinton and Biden are old and outdated. So I rank Gabbard and Warren, both of whom get knocked out. If we have IRV I’m done, my vote “effectively” has been negated, my vote doesn’t get redistributed as others have that ranked everyone, even those candidates they don’t even know or don’t like.

You can't choose to not vote between two candidates, then complain you didn't get to vote between two candidates. A runoff between any two candidates could happen. If you want to participate in that runoff, rank them. If you hate them both and don't see one as slightly less bad, don't vote for either. If you CHOOSE to not vote for them, yes, of course you won't get a vote.

> In a traditional runoff maybe Sanders and Biden are the top two vote getters. I can see clearly the race and although I think Biden’s old and his time has gone by, I dislike sanders because he blows his grass all over my driveway and complains about my pickup. I’ve got the opportunity to vote “against” him.

You already had that opportunity with IRV! You chose to not rank them. There's no difference between the two, at all. You are simply choosing "I will vote for the runoff between these two people I dislike" at the polling station, rather than waiting for a second runoff and having to take more time off work and more time out of your day to do it (or to decide not to do it). It's the exact same except one doesn't require a 2nd trip to the polling stations (which is hard on many working class Vermonters!)

> IRV does NOT make the runoff clear at all and I my only Choice is to vote for candidates that May it may not be running

This doesn't make sense. it's not "I have to vote for candidates who may or may not be running", it's that you get the BENEFIT of BEING ABLE to vote for candidates who might not win, without killing your primary party's chances. So I can vote for Bernie without killing Hillary's odds. You are never "voting for candidates who are not running". You literally CANNOT get your vote thrown away unless you choose not to vote at all at some point in the runoffs, at which point you've DECIDED not to vote - not had that vote take naway from you.

> And again, outside of a token amount of money saved I don’t see a benefit or reason to change the current system that is straightforward and simple.

A huge benefit of removing the spoiler effect (3rd party votes taking away from your primary party votes, thus helping the other side) and reducing (but not eliminating) two-party rule. Pretty gigantic benefits. On top of money saved on runoffs, which is a minor benefit. It would also dramatically increase voter turnout, because it means a vote for a 3rd party isn't a wasted vote, so people have more choice and will feel better represented.

yeah, so am I. my point was that Rutland has the exact same issues as every other small town in the state and the country. it's not some extra special shithole.

perhaps you need to get out more if you believe that to be the case !

"gotta love Rutland" they smugly say before going and crying about their own town having the exact same issues as every other small rural town in america

no worries, reddit formatting is kinda weird. for quoting, all you need to do is put a > and a space before the paragraph. so this:

> quote

turns into this:

> quote

> Because you don’t know who is actually in the “runoff” part how do you know how you want to vote

But it doesn't matter who's in the runoff. For example, if there's candidates A B C D E. You like A B C in that order (A the most, B 2nd, C 3rd), D and E suck. Let's say two candidates are run off. It doesn't matter which two are out, you still prefer A B C and hate D E. The remaining candidates don't effect how you feel about the other candidates. If A and B are run off, you still choose C. If A and C are run off, you still choose B. If D and E are run off, you still vote A. You already know who you want to vote for, you get to do it all at the beginning, that's the point of ranking your choices.

> To your response to my point 1. I understand the logic that’s it’s akin to not voting, but at the same time it’s not the same.

It is literally the exact same, and I will give a scenario to show you how it is the same.

> If I chose to only rank 3 candidates because I think the other two are crooks, and all my candidates get knocked out and my vote can no longer be distributed than I have voted, but my vote has effectively been tossed out. I didn’t CHOOSE not to vote, I went to the polls, took time out of my day, etc to go cast a ballot. I have the right for that ballot to be counted.

Your ballot WAS counted. What? Imagine if there were just runoffs every time until 50% was reached. You go to the polls, candidate A is out. You go again, candidate B is out. You go AGAIN, C is out. Now just D and E are left. Do you still go to the polls, or do you stay home? If you stay home, that's the same as leaving those two blank with ranked choice. If you go out to the poll, that's the same as actually ranking them, even though you despise them. Your ballot WAS counted. It was always counted, and your candidate lost. That doesn't mean it's thrown away. You still voted for them: they just didn't win, and you decided not to participate in the runoff vote of the last two candidates.

> But in a traditional runoff I have a choice to vote again or not, in IRV that choice is made for me based on how everything works out.

No, that's not correct. In IRV, you make the choice to vote again or not immediately. You make that decision once, at the polls, one time. It's literally the exact same result as having many runoff votes.

> we are discounting a lot of peoples votes

There are no votes being discounted. You can recite how it works, but you don't understand how it works. No votes are thrown away in your scenario.

You're right, and it makes sense why it's like that. It just sucks.

> Still not much of a day trip if you get in at 5pm.

Actually, 5 pm arrival in Burlington would be perfect for a weekend with friends. Like, if I had a magic wand of when arrivals got into Burlington, I'd choose 5 pm.

First: I appreciate this comment laying this out. I'm going to respond out of order, I've slightly edited quotes just to make what I'm responding to a bit more clearly - my intention is not to misrepresent one of your points by cutting out context, if I commit this error call me out. It would be due to incompetence and not malice.

> 3.) traditional runoffs allow for additional time to vet the two candidates. Maybe one candidate seems like a stellar choice and you vote for them, but they don’t make it through the first round, now you’ve got a chance to become more informed of the remaining 2 choices.

Shouldn't you already have researched all 7 of those candidates anyway? If you researched just 1 candidate and know "I like them" you should know why you like them over other candidates.

I see what you're getting at somewhat, though. Candidates you may have discarded because of not liking them as much as your #1 won't be researched as thoroughly. Fair enough.

> 2.) it’s completely obscure and which candidate is running off against which other candidate isn’t clear prior to casting your vote

I'm not certain you understand how ranked choice voting works, to be honest. They're all running against everyone.

> there were two other candidates that had 65%+ of voter support

130% of people voted?

> Voting should be crystal clear which candidates are running and which candidates are available to vote for. This uncertainty disenfranchises voters, especially if they know their vote may not count.

Your ranked-choice vote will, at minimum, count for the exact same amount that your FPTP vote would count. Just to be sure that I'm understanding you, could you lay out a situation where you're saying that a vote will not count?

> 4.) voter education

Absolutely. By far the biggest issue with ranked choice. But at worst, it's equivalent - ie, you could just vote #1 as the candidate you want, and that's equivalent to the old system. Education will happen, and I think in the last 10 years people have learned a lot more about voting systems. The world is in a better place to understand now than it was then.

> 1. IRV violates the one vote- one person principle that is the foundation of our democracy

That's not a foundation of our democracy. 3/5s rule, anyone?

> With IRV however, if I don’t rank all candidates (and there are several valid reasons someone may choose not to) then depending on how the future rounds break down, I may not actually get a vote.

This is literally equivalent to saying "if I don't vote for a [govt position], I don't get a vote!". Yeah, you're right: if you don't vote, you don't vote.

> If I only rank one person and they’re eliminated, my vote is effectively tossed out in the trash

I mean, sure? But you could say the same about voting for anything other than the party that's going to win right now - ie, if your candidate isn't super strong, voting for them is throwing away your vote anyway. This is an issue with the current system just as much as ranked choice.

In general, let's avoid "if I do something wrong, bad things happen" type arguments. I've already said that education will be a big challenge, but for the sake of conversation now, let's pretend everyone is educated about how it works and votes properly. Eventually, everyone will understand it if it is implemented, so let's just assume for now.

fair enough, but still, is there anything being done with this proposal? like, are you writing up things to go with it and sending it somewhere, or just reddit? I'd love to support it elsewhere!

> The Ethan Allen Express expansion

this is kind of a disappointment. as a Rutlander, I was excited to be able to take a train to Burlington. I would be willing to pay 50% more to go 20 minutes slower, but having my only option be depart at 8pm arrive at 10pm makes the service completely unusable. I wish I could use it, to send the message "I want this!" and have service be expanded, but getting there that late makes it worthless to me. Plus, no possibility of day trips.

But I'm just whining with no solution or helpful advice here, lol.

I'm a train believer but is this anything besides lines on a .jpg? Seems like you've got BILLIONS of dollars of work on this map right now, and I don't really see that happening in the next century

"waah ad hominem attacks". next comment:

> ME has IRV so if you had lived in ME you too may have had first hand knowledge… it doesn’t appear your maturity level is such that you participated when Burlington tried it.

lol ok dude.

I have gone through and read a shitton of your comments in good faith, but I honestly can't find much to go off except "but BURLINGTON! and someone bad was elected one time!". it's likely I've missed some of your comments due to the large nature of the thread. If you actually state your arguments clearly and concisely, I will actually comment back in good faith.