Ranked choice voting one step closer to becoming state law

On March 9, the Minnesota State Elections Committee voted 8-5 in favor of The Protect and Advance Democracy Act to establish a task force to develop standards, procedures, and a timeline for implementing RCV statewide.

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Twenty years ago, in Minnesota’s 2002 Gubernatorial Election, Republican Tim Pawlenty was elected governor of our state with only 44% of the vote. Minnesota’s progressive/liberal vote was split that year between Independent Party candidate Tim Penny, who received 16%, and Democrat Roger Moe, who received 36%.
Four years later, in 2006, Pawlenty was elected again, this time with 47% of the vote; Democrat Mike Hatch received 46%, and progressive Independent Peter Hutchinson received 6.4%.
The 2006 election was particularly painful and divisive among our state’s more liberal majority, as we watched our majority be split and defeated for the second time in a row. Both Penny and Hutchinson were criticized for behaving as “spoiler” candidates, since polling consistently predicted that they clearly would not have enough votes to actually to win the election. Their critics feared that those progressive independent candidates would simply enable the Republican candidate to win with less than half the vote – and that is exactly what happened.
Enter Ranked Choice Voting – sometimes called Instant Runoff Voting – a nonpartisan reform that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference.
Ranked Choice Voting gives voters the freedom to choose their favorite candidate, and then pick a second choice as a backup in case their first choice doesn’t win. It ensures that voters won’t “waste” votes on a long shot, nor feel forced to betray their true preferences by voting for a candidate they think has a better chance to win.
Over the past 20 years, RCV has been gaining support among reasonable, fair-minded voters, and as many of you know, we already use this method in all Minneapolis and St. Paul elections.
Said DFL State Senator Kelly Morrison at the bill’s hearing, “Ranked Choice Voting ensures that candidates win majority support, and it promotes more civil, representative, and inclusive elections. We have seen RCV work successfully and effectively at local levels in Minnesota, in cities around the country, and statewide in the states of Maine and Alaska.”
I have personally been on the IRV–RCV bandwagon since 1998 – the “Jesse Ventura Days” – and, in my opinion, RCV is the single best pragmatic solution to the problems of our body politic. Yet some people remain unconvinced, and more often than not, the main objection has to do with the rule of “One Person – One Vote.”
Kingfield resident and FairVote Minnesota Executive Director Jeanne Massey addressed this objection at the March 9 hearing. “Legal challenges to Ranked Choice Voting have gone all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court, under Justice Eric Magnuson, unanimously found RCV to be constitutional. And that’s because it comports with ‘one person, one vote.’ In every round of counting, every person has one vote that counts.”
Massey added: “In a ranked choice election, we, as voters, rank our options, first, second, third choice, etc. It’s very simple, and rather than doing a second run-off election the way Georgia does, RCV triggers an instant run-off, and that’s why this is often called ‘instant run-off voting.’
“So, if no candidate, upon counting first choices, garners an absolute majority of the vote, then the least-favored candidate is defeated, and then the second choices on those ballots are now counted. Those ballots are reallocated to the second choices only from that defeated candidate. So, if my first choice is still in the race, my first choice continues to count. Everyone has a vote counted in every round, and that process continues until one candidate emerges with a majority of continuing votes.
“It really is that straight-forward, and that’s why it is always found to be a constitutional voting method, not just in courts here in Minnesota, but across the country.”
Said attorney Simon Barnicle at the hearing, “In red states and blue and in cities across the state and country, RCV is being adopted because it gives more choices, encourages broad coalition building, and reduces polarization and gridlock.
“The case for RCV in Minnesota is even greater. For years, partisan operatives have cynically promoted extremist third party candidates in the hopes that they will siphon votes away from the DFL. This bill would end that practice, by preventing third party candidates from acting as spoilers.”
We are moving it forward in the Senate Omnibus Bill, and a success there just might help Ranked Choice Voting move to the House and Senate floor, and then to the desk of Governor Walz, who is reportedly eager to sign it.
May we all benefit from this advance in our democracy.

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