TC Daily Planet - New Ranked Choice Voting allows voters to vote for first, second, third choice

Minneapolis voters will find a new type of ballot at the polls on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. The ballots allow voters to vote for their first choice, second choice and third choice for city offices.

The change is part of the move to a new system of voting called "Ranked Choice Voting," approved in a city referendum in 2006 by a wide margin.

Read the complete story.

Star Tribune - Minneapolis tries ranked-choice voting

What's different about voting in Minneapolis this year?

You get to rank three candidates in each election contest. That's ranked-choice voting, the system the city is launching for municipal races. So in the 11-person mayor's race, you may rank one candidate as your first choice, another as your second, and a third as your final choice.

"It's a lot less confusing than it sounds once somebody explains it," Nancy Harrington, who rarely misses an election, said at an informational workshop at Webber Neighborhood Center last week.

Read the complete article here.

Neighbor to Neighbor Outreach -- now on Sundays!

Help make sure that Minneapolis voters are prepared for the polls on November 3rd.  Join us Saturdays and Sundays for our Neighbor to Neighbor Outreach.

This Sunday (October 25) we'll meet at Overflow Cafe (2929 University Ave. SE) at 1pm.

And next weekend, we'll meet at....

Saturday, October 31, 10am and 1pm
-Steamworks Coffee, 44th and Penn Ave N.
 
Sunday, November 1, 1pm
-Tillie's Bean, Nicollet and Franklin

We'll also be dropping fliers around key points of the City on Monday, November 2.  Stop by our offices (2323 E. Franklin) to pick up a route and materials anytime between 10am and 6pm.

?s: 612-605-8370 or info@voteminneapolis.org

Ranked Choice Voting Hand Count procedure

For those of you who missed the presentation last Wednesday, below is a slideshow about the hand count.

Ranked Choice Voting Hand Count

View more presentations from Ona Keller.

Questions?  Contact Ona Keller, RCV Outreach Coordinator, at 612-605-8370.

WCCO - Mpls. To Teach Voters To Use Ranked Choice Ballots

If you plan to step into a Minneapolis voting booth next month, you'll be seeing an entirely new kind of ballot. In 2006, voters approved a new system called "ranked choice voting."

Read the complete story here.

Question of the Week - How do I know that my vote will be counted properly?

How do I know that my vote will be counted properly?

The counting process is a little more complicated than in past elections. The City of Minneapolis Elections Department has developed procedures to ensure that all votes will be counted properly. First, your vote will never be distributed to a candidate that you did not rank. Your vote will only be distributed to candidates that you do rank.

Second, the counting procedures have numerous redundancies to ensure that any counting errors are caught and corrected immediately. The voter error accounting, counting, and sorting are all done by different teams of election judges. Each team that handles ballots is made up of two judges from different political parties. Even the data entry and simple math needed to identify the winner is done by two separate teams of election judges.

It is important to remember that the vote count will always be open for observation by the public. All of the round-by-round results will be released to the public as they are available. In addition, at the end of the count, voters will know how every ballot in the City was marked.

Question of the Week - Do I have to vote in all three columns?

Do I have to vote in all three columns?

No. You do not have to vote for a candidate in each of the three columns. You have the choice of voting in only the first column, or the first and second columns, or you can fill all three columns. And, just like past elections, you are not required to vote for every office. Only vote for those candidates and offices that you wish to.

MPR - Minneapolis holding instant-runoff training workshops

by Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio
October 9, 2009

Minneapolis — Minneapolis officials will hold 14 voter training workshops in the next few weeks, designed to reduce confusion in the city's first Ranked Choice Voting election this November.

At the events, participants can practice voting on Ranked Choice ballots. The ballot allows voters to rank their top three choices for mayor, city council, the board of estimate and taxation, and the park and recreation board.

The city has also created an online educational video and an interactive tool to practice using the new ballot.

The video stresses that voters cannot select the same candidate for all three ranked slots and should be careful not to mark their choices in the wrong section.

"This will be an historic moment in Minneapolis elections," said Patrick O'Connor, the city's elections director. "The city of Minneapolis wants to make sure that all voters are prepared when they come to the polls November 3."

Online resources and workshop details are available on the Vote Minneapolis website.

Join Us this Weekend for Neighbor to Neighbor Outreach

The City of Minneapolis Elections Department recently kicked off an effort to educate voters about Ranked Choice Voting. One-on-one communication with voters was really the best way to inform voters about the new voting system.

We need your help to accomplish this! We are looking for volunteers to help us educate your neighbors about Ranked Choice Voting. Volunteers will receive training, materials, and food.

Saturday, October 10th @ 10 am  Click here for more information and to RSVP

Saturday, October 10th @ 1 pm  Click here for more information and to RSVP

Saturday, October 17th @ 10 am  Click here for more information and to RSVP

Saturday, October 17th @ 1 pm  Click here for more information and to RSVP

Saturday, October 24th @ 10 am Click here for more information and to RSVP

Saturday, October 24th @ 1 pm  Click here for more information and to RSVP

Sunday, October 25th @ 1 pm  Click here for more information and to RSVP

Notes on candidate briefing

{Look for a video coming soon...}

Why a hand count?
Our machines cannot produce full results for RCV election.
Raw numbers for choices only – not whose choices.
Machines can’t account for RCV- specific errors (i.e. skipped columns). Must be done by hand.
Do not make too much of election night results.
If your total first choice votes from the election night count is over the threshold based on total first choice votes, you may have won but we still need to account for voter mistakes. (That process could add more first choice votes, increasing the threshold.)

What are we counting?
All of the city’s ballots. Expected turnout at least 70,000 and potentially greater.
Greater turnout = longer time to count

Where are we conducting the count and who will be doing the counting?
Elections Warehouse: 723 Harding St NE.
Entire elections department plus over 100 Election Judges every shift.

When are we counting and when will we finish?
We now have a process that will allow us to finish the count on or before December 22nd.  Results for most races come earlier than that.
Winners of races and round by round results released as soon as the count for that race is complete.
Random Ward order. Park district results as constituent precincts counted (according to random ward order). City-wide last.
Rule of thumb: Counting an entire ward will take about 3 days.
We will count six days per week, Monday through Saturday beginning November 4, the day after the election, until we’re done. Each day will have a full eight-hour shift running 8am to 4:30pm or noon to 8:30pm. (We are hoping to take Sundays off as well as Thanksgiving Th, F, Sa.)
49 days – 10 days off = 39 days. Down from our previous estimate of potentially 100+ days.

How are we counting and how has the process improved to get the time down?
Divorcing the data from the ballots so we are not limited to counting one race at a time.
Scalable so if we fall behind, we can just add more EJ teams.
Process:
Counting sorting teams work with one precinct at a time and sort into all combos for a race and record how many.
Do this five times (once per race) for each ballot.
Then they start on next precinct. MEANWHILE…
The information they recorded is combined with information recorded from ballots from all the other precincts in the ward/district to produce the results for the race.
This means we can produce results for one race WHILE sorting and counting for another race or district is going on and we can produce results for multiple races in the same district simultaneously. Faster.
There are checks at every step to cut negate errors and catch them when they happen.
Two person teams
Party balance
Reconciliation

What kinds of results are there and why are they different?
Election night machine results don’t tell the whole story -- just raw numbers.
Ballot data – how every ballot in the city was marked

Whose results will be produced when?
The order that we will assign precincts to counting teams will be determined by lots. We will draw lots for wards. First ward on the list will have all its precincts assigned first and so on.
By doing the counting in chunks by ward we can release as many race results as possible as early as possible.
CM -> Park Dist -> City-wide at the end
Rule of thumb: three days per ward. ROUGHLY.

Where can we find out results?
Election night machine results released on the web on election night.
Round by round race results with winners released on the web as soon as we have them.
City-wide ballot data released at the end when it is complete.
We will also be posting daily progress reports on numbers of precincts completed and which districts are complete on the website.