Is Minneapolis still on track for ranked voting in 2009?

The clock is ticking for Minneapolis to get its instant run-off voting ordinances and equipment in place in time for next year’s city elections. The City Council’s Elections Committee hears an update this morning on a state group that’s been trying to work out the legislative and technical hurdles standing in the way.

Minneapolis voters approved a ballot amendment in November 2006 to adopt instant run-off, or ranked-choice voting, for city elections beginning in 2009. The system allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. It eliminates the need for primaries and should mean a wider range of candidates will appear on general election ballots.

Instant run-off voting has never been used in Minnesota, and a lot of work needs to get done in the next 20 months if the city is going to pull it off. “It’s cutting it very close,” said Jeanne Massey, director of FairVote Minnesota, an instant run-off advocacy group that was the lead force behind getting the ballot amendment passed. “We’re got a narrowing window of opportunity, and the city now needs to be deliberate and take some quick steps going forward.”

Cindy Reichert, director of the city’s elections department, will share two reports with the City Council committee today, both from the Secretary of State’s Ranked Choice Voting Issues Group, which started meeting last summer. One report focuses on legislative barriers and other other on technological problems.The State Legislature needs to make some changes to state law in order for Minneapolis’ system to be legal to be better guarded against the possibility of lawsuits. Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, has introduced a bill in the House, and a Senate bill was expected to be introduced, possibly today by Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, Massey said.

The City Council needs to pass its own new voting ordinance to reflect instant run-off procedures. Robin Garwood, an aide to Council Member Cam Gordon, said their office wants to begin putting the new rules in ordinance as soon as possible. “Whether or not there’s state legislation on this, we should have our rules in ordinance,” Garwood said.

The biggest challenge is going to be acquiring new voting equipment that can count ranked ballots and is certified by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, a process that can be lengthy and expensive. Ranked-choice voting machines are a niche market and so the companies that make voting equipment haven’t made them a priority.

“The problem is that we basically have a triopoly in the voting equipment market,” Garwood said. The three dominant companies are Election Systems & Software, Inc., Sequoia Voting Systems, and  Premier Voting Solutions (or the company-formerly-known-as-Diebold). “So they behave the way you would expect a triopoly to behave. It’s like dealing with Microsoft; it’s dealing with companies that know they’re in a somewhat protected position from challenges by entrepreneurs,” Garwood said.

So the city has limited and expensive options from the three major voting equipment companies. The most affordable option might be a product from True Ballot, Inc., that would allow the city to keep its existing voting machines and supplement them with off-the-shelf scanners and free software.

“It could be done for as little as $100,000,” Massey said. “It’s highly transparent. It has several layers of redundancy. It excites a lot of people, but the hitch here is it’s not yet certified.”

Garwood said it’s important to issue a request for proposals soon so that the city can begin getting concrete information from companies that might be able to provide equipment. “Everything we’ve heard so far is sketchy and hedgy. We can’t really get a good answer on this until we have an RFP,” he said.

Council Member Gordon is anxious for the council to give staff instructions on preparing a proposal, as well as to introduce the new voting rules ordinance. Both will likely be discussed this morning. The ordinance process could be initiated as soon as tomorrow, and the RFP instructions are likely to come up again at an Elections Committee meeting next Friday, March 7.

A timeline issued by the city’s elections office following the November 2006 election said the city should have issued the RFP this month, according to Massey and Garwood. That won’t happen. Reichert said she’s observed equipment demonstrations with the state committee, but that the City Council hasn’t given instructions on going forward with a request for proposals. “This is new for everybody. We certainly have a lot of learning to do,” Reichert said.