Downtown Journal - Civic beat: Ranked-choice a go

By Cristof Traudes

Ranked-choice voting a go for November election

A pair of decisions this month have guaranteed that Minneapolis will implement ranked-choice voting in the November election.

On June 11, the state Supreme Court ruled that the instant-runoff elections method, which Minneapolis voters adopted in 2006, is constitutional. A citizens’ group, the Minnesota Voters Alliance, had argued that it doesn’t amount to one person, one vote, but the court’s unanimous opinion disagreed. Instead, Chief Justice Eric Magnuson’s opinion likened the runoff process to an accelerated primary system.

“In the general election,” the opinion reads, “voters who voted for candidates eliminated in the primary are allowed to cast another ballot, which necessarily will be for a different candidate — presumably, their second choice. This is no different than the counting of the second-choice votes of voters for eliminated candidates in instant-runoff voting.”

The decision was welcomed with open arms by the City Council, which had set June 11 as a requested deadline.

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