Elections this year demonstrate success of ranked choice voting

This fall, Bloomington, Minneapolis, Minnetonka, St. Louis Park, and St. Paul all used ranked choice voting for their municipal elections and were among 21 cities in seven states using ranked choice voting across the country. Minnetonka voters also considered a City Charter amendment to repeal ranked choice voting (RCV), and conclusively rejected that repeal, voting to save RCV by a margin of 59 percent to 41 percent. 

The 2023 municipal elections in Minnesota once again demonstrated the success of ranked choice voting (RCV). Voters were able to express their preferences across multiple candidates, voter turnout increased overall compared to similar elections prior to implementing RCV, the cities saved the cost of holding a city primary where only a small percentage of voters participated, and RCV continued to demonstrate its ability to accelerate representation of women and people of color in elected office. Under RCV, St. Louis Park elected Nadia Mohamed, the first Somali American mayor in the United States; St. Paul elected the first all women city council, the majority of which are women of color; Minnetonka elected its first all women city council (excepting the mayor who was not on the ballot); and Minneapolis continued its progress toward greater diversity where nine out of 13 council members will be people of color, and once again, a majority will be women. These results are consistent with other jurisdictions that have implemented RCV. 

RCV gives greater opportunity to women and BIPOC communities by opening the process to more candidates and new voices, incentivizing positive campaigns based on the issues, and eliminating the risk of vote-splitting between candidates with similar platforms or from the same community. It also eliminates the low-turnout and unrepresentative local primary that is a barrier to new voices in general and for underrepresented communities in particular. Since local elections are a significant pipeline to state elected office, local voting systems can have a significant impact on the diversity and representation in our state legislative bodies, as well.

 

The candidates who win ranked-choice elections are those who build the broadest coalitions of voter support. In most cases, the winning candidate emerged with a majority of support outright, which occurred in 24 out of the 34 races this year. Of the 10 races that went to an RCV runoff and required additional rounds of counting, eight candidates finished with a majority or near majority of initial ballots cast; all finished with a majority of ballots continuing in the final round. The value of RCV is that candidates must reach beyond their base for second and third choice votes and campaign towards that majority, and they do that by focusing on the issues important to voters, presenting their positive vision for the city and refraining from attacking their opponents.

This election year must be placed in the context of the overall political environment. While we have seen increasing polarization in American politics in recent years, we may have reached our most polarized period yet. RCV combats polarization by changing the incentives for candidates who must campaign for a broad majority of voters, not just their base, and who benefit from not only first but also second choice votes. Candidates who engage in negative attacks may alienate their opponents’ supporters and are less likely to earn second and later choice votes. RCV promotes civility, but ranked-choice elections are also not immune from the political ecosystem which, unfortunately, has become toxic. While we have seen a trend of growing civility in candidate behavior under RCV, Independent Expenditure campaigns can, unfortunately, still go negative, often to the detriment of the candidates they support.