Big win for independents via Supreme Court ruling approving Instant Runoff Voting in Minneapolis

by Staff
Published: June 11,2009
Time posted: 1:00 am
Tags: Elections 2009, instant runoff voting, Minneapolis

In a big win for Fair Vote Minnesota, supporters of Instant Runoff Voting (also known as Ranked Choice Voting) secured the role of their preferred electoral style with a very favorable ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court. In an opinion written by Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, IRV’s role in this November’s election in Minneapolis got approved. Since, of course, the DFL dominates Minneapolis politics, this could let marginalized urban conservatives and independents efficiently consolidate their votes around more conservative candidates. On the other hand, it also frees those to the left of the DFL mainstream to vote for Greens and other lefties, and then safely set a second choice for a liberal DFLer.

[An aside: readers of the Senate Recount tea leaves may be interested in the Court's defense of states' rights in election processes (pg. 10) -- could a similar argument appear in the much-anticipated U.S. Senate appeal?]

It also seems likely this would spur more IRV-based local elections statewide, opening up a whole new field for moderates that could appeal to the general public, rather than the partisan activists that dominate local endorsement processes. A key point the justices considered: Minneapolis elections are already non-partisan two-round runoffs: the primary selects the top two vote-getters, then the general election determines the winner. The justices concluded that IRV just condenses this process. Below the fold, a bit more from the ruling.

Moreover, this aspect of the IRV methodology is directly analogous to the pattern
of voting in a primary/general election system. In a nonpartisan primary election, each
voter’s vote counts in determining which two candidates survive to reach the general
election. In essence, those primary votes are the voters? first-choice ranking of the
candidates. As a result of the primary, all but the top two candidates are eliminated.
Then, in the general election, voters who voted for candidates eliminated in the primary
are allowed to cast another ballot, which necessarily will be for a different candidate

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No Responses to “Big win for independents via Supreme Court ruling approving Instant Runoff Voting in Minneapolis”

  1. Anonymous Says:
    June 12th, 2009 at 7:07 pm

    For instance, the Judges stated that: “Then, in the general election, voters who voted for candidates eliminated in the primary are allowed to cast another ballot,”

    The Judges fail to mention that in IRV not all voters whose candidates are eliminated are allowed to vote in the final IRV counting round due to exhausted ballots, so that this feature of top-two runoff is “not” remotely the same as a top-two runoff election.

    The Judges also incorrectly stated that: “This is no different than the counting of the second- choice votes of voters for eliminated candidates in instant runoff voting.”

    The Judges neglect to mention that in IRV voters do not know in advance which candidates will be in the final counting round, and that not all voters’ 2nd (or even 3rd) choices make it to the final counting round. Many voters are not allowed to participate in the final IRV counting round, unlike in top-two runoff where every voter may participate.

    The Judges also falsely claim that: “the effect [of top-two runoff and IRV] in terms of the counting of votes is the same.” However, top-two runoffs much more often overturn the candidate with the most votes in the first “round” or election, perhaps because all voters are allowed to participate in the final top-two runoff election, unlike IRV.

    There were also false statements made by this article’s author and in Fair Vote’s release.

    For the realities about IRV see ElectionMathematics.org IRV page.

  2. Anonymous Says:
    June 14th, 2009 at 7:10 am

    The only way that voters are “not allowed to vote” in the final IRV round is if they didn’t rank one of the top two candidates on their ballot. That is their choice. Top two runoff is more likely to overturn first round results than IRV, but that is not necessarily a good thing. Quite often, the victor in the second round of top two runoff has fewer votes than the runner up did in the first round! Candidates win because even though their turnout declines substantially it’s not by as much as the other candidate’s turnout.

    Let’s take a look at the recent local elections in Burlington. The Mayoral election was done by IRV and the City Council elections by top two runoff. In both the Mayor’s race and in City Council District 7, the winner in the final round came in second in the first round. There are crucial differences between the two elections. The Mayor’s race was settled on the day of the election, and 93% of the voters who cast votes in the first round ended up voting in the final round. In the City Council race, voters had to come back and vote all over again three weeks later. Only 55% as many voters showed up as for the first election. The cost to taxpayers of holding a runoff election was also greater, and candidates had to raise more money for their campaigns. I’ll take IRV any day.

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