Minnesota and Instant Runoff Voting

Cross-posted at Vox Verax.

Last week Minneapolis voters overwhelming approved instant runoff voting for future city elections. Instant runoff voting, or IRV, allows voters to rank their candidate preferences on their ballots. The idea is that if no single candidate receives a majority of 1st choice votes, then the candidate receiving the least number of votes is eliminated and the 2nd choice of those who voted for him or her is then allocated to the remaining candidates.

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Here’s a theoretical example. Let’s say Clint Bunsen, David Ingqvist and Clint’s sister-in-law Arlene Bunsen are running for mayor of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. The vote is tallied, and the results are as follows:

Because no one candidate received a majority of the vote, the candidate with the least number of 1st choice votes is eliminated. That’s Clint Bunsen. Now the 2nd choice votes of those who preferred him over the other two candidates are allocated to the remaining candidates. (NOTE: Not every voter cast 2nd and 3rd choice votes, either because they were confused by the new system or because they didn’t care or, in the case of Wally from the Sidetrack Tavern, they were protesting the change from the old system.)

Thus, the instant runoff results look like this:

Although Arlene Bunsen finished 2nd in the 1st balloting, she wins the election with 56.2% of the runoff vote because she was the overwhelming 2nd choice of voters whose initial choice was Clint Bunsen.

So this is instant runoff voting. Lest is sound strange to Americans, it is not to citizens of Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and Fiji, all of which use IRV or a similar system in many of their municipal, state, territory or federal elections. In the U.S., IRV has been adopted so far in:

• Alameda County, Berkeley, Davis, Oakland, San Leandro, and San Francisco City and County; California
• Takoma Park, Maryland
• Ferndale, Michigan
• Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Burlington, Vermont
• Pierce County, Washington

IRV still has a long way to go, and implementation in the cities and counties where it has been approved can take time and incur expenses. For example, electronic voting machines are not yet set up to process the system, and in Minneapolis, implementation is estimated to cost $1.2 to $1.4 million.

Yet the advantages in the long run should outweigh the costs and confusion inherent in making the transition. In some cities and counties it eliminates costly primaries and special elections. But the main advantage of the system is that it yields a clear winner