The most recent such election was the 1998 lieutenant gubernatorial race. Since 1972, there have been 11 state officer elections with no majority winner. In most cases, the General Assembly elected the candidate who had the highest popular vote total. In some of these cases, however, that plurality candidate may well not have been the preferred candidate of the majority of voters. In a number of cases, the General Assembly elected a candidate who had come in second, or even third, in the popular vote.
Some noteworthy examples follow.
In 1813, although the Democratic-Republican Party candidate, Jonas Galusha, had the popular plurality and was just 155 votes short of an absolute majority, the General Assembly elected Federalist Martin Chittenden Governor by a vote of 112 to 111. The most recent example of the General Assembly's rejection of the plurality candidate occurred in 1976 when Republican T. Gary Buckley, who had come in second in popular vote was elected by a three-vote margin in the General Assembly over the plurality winner, John Alden. An election of special importance in the history of both the Republican and Democratic Parties of Vermont occurred in 1853. Contrary to common belief, the first Democratic Governor of Vermont was not Phil Hoff, but rather John Robinson, elected by the General Assembly in 1853. There are two reasons noted for the General Assembly's rejection of the plurality candidate.