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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Star Tribune - Minneapolis will use ranked-choice voting method

By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune

An unusual, newfangled method of casting and counting ballots is coming to Minneapolis this fall.

For the first time, city voters will have to rank up to three candidates in the order they prefer them for each contest. If no candidate wins a majority of first-place votes, second-choice (and possibly third-choice) ballots will come into play.

The Minnesota Supreme Court cleared the way for ranked-choice voting on Nov. 3 in a decision that also jump-starts the push to use it in St. Paul and beyond.

In a decision released Thursday, the court rejected a challenge to the new voting method brought by the Minnesota Voters Alliance, which questioned the constitutionality of having voters rank candidates in the order they prefer them.

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