MONTPELIER, Vt. --Instant runoff voting was rated a success Wednesday by most who worked with the new system of electing Burlington's mayor last week, but a key legislator said it probably still would not be adopted statewide just yet.

Instead, legislators believe they'll probably order a commission to study the more complex issues of using the system throughout the state, with its more than 251 towns and voting precincts.

"We want to take it carefully because we're talking about a statewide election," said Senate Government Operations Committee Chairman James Condos, D-Chittenden.

Condos' committee and its House counterpart took testimony from Burlington officials a little more than a week after the city used an instant runoff when none of the five candidates for mayor won 50 percent of the vote. Voters had been given the opportunity to rank their second, third and fourth choices and Progressive Bob Kiss won on the second round.

Kiss, currently a state representative, said he believed the system had been a success, both in the way it was administered and the way it affected the election. But his unsuccessful Democratic opponent, state Sen. Hinda Miller, did not.

Miller said it skewed the campaign and put the Republican candidate, City Councilor Kevin Curley, in the position of affecting the outcome by endorsing Kiss as the best second choice.

"As a candidate you're forced to figure out or your supporters are forced to figure out how to game the system," she said. "It was the Kevin Curley second vote that decided the election. he was the candidate who interfered, in my mind, with the independent thinking of his voters."

She and fellow Democrat Sandra Baird said the runoff system ended up forcing candidates to blur their differences so they might win a voter's second choice. "Because they were all vying for each other's second-place votes, they were trying to please each other," Baird said. "I'm interested in the distinction between them on the issues and that wasn't clear."

Kiss, asked to respond directly by a member of the committee, took a different view. He pointed out that there had been a difference among the candidates on whether Burlington voters should favor being able to institute a local sales tax. There also were differences on the tax increase necessary to support the schools' budget.

"I think there were distinctions in the debate," he said. "I think it encourages people to look more broadly at the debate."