Overview of events on Election Night, March 7, 2007
  1. As soon as possible after the close of polls at 7pm on Tuesday, March 7, election officials will close down the voting equipment and print out a "totals" tape.  Because of the programming of the voting equipment for instant runoff voting, this totals tape will not show vote totals for each candidate in each race as in past years.  Instead, the totals tape will simply show the number of ballots cast.
  2. Election officials will then deliver the tabulator, which is the top portion of the voting equipment and which contains the memory card holding all voting data, to City Hall, where the Elections Director will upload the data from the tabulators.  At that point, 1st choice totals for mayor and all other election results will be announced publicly.
  3. Election officials will then return to their wards to tally write-in votes and announce ward-level results, which will include 1st choice totals for mayor and all other election results.
  4. If no candidate for mayor received 50% of 1st choices, the Elections Director will then copy the set of all rankings from each ward onto a floppy disk and from the floppy disk onto the computer with the IRV tallying software.
  5. The IRV tally will be performed and round-by-round election results will be printed out, projected on the wall of Contois Auditorium and posted on the City's website along with a complete set of data files and audit reports.  That information will be available here after 7pm on March 7, 2006.
If you have any questions about this process, please don't hesitate to contact the Clerk-Treasurer's office at 802-865-7000 or visit the Burlington Votes website.