Election Day: What will ranked choice bring?

By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune

Last update: November 3, 2009


Minneapolis voters go to the polls today to tackle ranked-choice voting, a new method of filling municipal offices, amidst uncertainty over the effect it could have on the final results.

City election officials didn't predict a turnout figure for the city's first election without a primary to winnow the field of candidates. But while the most prominent election of the day, the mayor's race, is not considered close, city officials offered conflicting opinions about whether the new method would stimulate voting or discourage it.

Voters will be asked to rank their first-, second- and third-choice candidates for each office, but not when they are voting yes or no on a charter amendment.

Although the results should be fairly evident in lopsided races, it could be weeks before a victor is known in contests where nobody achieves the required number of votes on first choices. Then the more complicated hand sorting of second and third choices will be required to declare a winner. That's where rankings of candidates could be the most influential.

While turnout remains a big question, city officials said they'll have 230,000 blank ballots -- one for every registered voter in the city.

The turnout for city general elections in the past 20 years has varied considerably. In 1993, when Sharon Sayles Belton defeated John Derus to become the city's first woman and first black mayor, more than 103,000 residents voted in the election. But in 1989, the last election in which an incumbent mayor faced such low-profile opposition, the turnout was just over 56,000.

The election will be watched beyond Minneapolis, as St. Paul voters decide whether to approve ranked-choice voting for their city. Their decision has implications for Minneapolis, according to interim Election Director Patrick O'Connor.

That's because demand determines the willingness of companies to develop vote-counting products that could automate the hand-counting process now required to handle voter choices. The more Minnesota cities using similar ranked-choice voting laws, the more willing equipment manufacturers will be to supply that market for the 2013 election, O'Connor said.

Raw results from Minneapolis voting will be posted on the Secretary of State's website but ought to be viewed with caution, O'Connor said. That's because the threshold for determining the winner in each race won't be determined until after election night, making it hard to be sure if a candidate has the necessary votes.

Overwhelming leaders on first-choice votes should be safe, but if nobody reaches the threshold, second- or third-choice votes have the ability to propel a lower-ranked candidate ahead of those leading in the first round.

Ranked-choice voting was approved by Minneapolis voters in 2006 and survived a legal challenge. That challenge was based on the potential harm the system could cause to voting, and thus faced a high legal bar.

A spokesman for the Minnesota Voters Alliance, which brought that challenge, said it plans another legal challenge based on how the method is applied in actual voting and counting, which would face a lower legal threshold.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438

Minnesota Supreme Court OKs instant runoff voting; St. Paul may consider it

Pioneer Press Politics

By Steve Karnowski
Associated Press
Updated: 06/11/2009 01:04:35 PM CDT


Minneapolis can go ahead with its plans for instant runoff voting for city offices, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today in a decision that gives St. Paul and Duluth a green light to consider it as well.

The justices rejected a challenge by a citizens' group on the constitutionality of the system, an alternative method in which voters rank their choices for each office instead of casting just one vote for one candidate in a race.

The system, also known as ranked choice voting, eliminates the need for separate primary and general elections in cities like Minneapolis with nonpartisan primaries. Proponents say it saves money, increases turnout, discourages negative campaigning and gives third-party candidates a better chance of being heard. Critics say it's too complicated and violates the principle of one person, one vote.

But the Supreme Court said the IRV method adopted by Minneapolis does not violate the U.S. or Minnesota constitutions, so Minneapolis is free to try it. The decision affirmed a lower-court decision that also backed the system.

FairVote Minnesota, which supports IRV, is pushing for a ballot measure that would allow St. Paul voters to decide in November whether to adopt the system. The City Council blocked a move to put it on the ballot last year while it waited for the Supreme Court decision, said Jean Massey, the group's executive director. She said she expects the St. Paul council to decide soon whether to move forward. Her group also plans a petition drive to put the issue on the ballot in Duluth, probably next year.
Minneapolis plans to use the system in this November's municipal elections.

"Today's State Supreme Court decision provides certainty to Minneapolis voters," City Attorney Susan Segal said in a statement. "The Court's decision means that the City can continue to move forward with implementing ranked choice voting — the method chosen overwhelmingly by Minneapolis voters in the 2006 voter referendum."

Erick Kaardal, the attorney for opponents including the Minnesota Voters Alliance, said the decision doesn't prevent them from filing lawsuits after an IRV election to contest how the votes were counted, and that they likely will. He also said they'll continue to campaign against IRV in St. Paul and Duluth.

"The battle has just begun," Kaardal said.

Massey said their strategy is to promote IRV at the local level for at least a few more years before trying to get it adopted for statewide elections.

The decision, written by Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, said the issue for the high court wasn't whether IRV is a good system, only whether Minneapolis voters had the right to choose it.

"Reducing the costs and inconvenience to voters, candidates, and taxpayers by holding only one election, increasing voter turnout, encouraging less divisive campaigns, and fostering greater minority representation in multiple-seat elections are all legitimate interests for the City to foster," the Supreme Count said. "Whether and to what degree implementation of IRV will achieve those benefits remains to be seen. But it is plausible that IRV may advance one or more of these interests."