Minnesota Could Be Third State To Adopt Ranked-Choice Voting, Following Alaska And Maine

Minnesota seeks to be the third state to use ranked-choice vote (RCV) in state and federal elections. This follows the lead of Maine and Alaska.

While five cities in the Gopher state already use RCV for municipal elections — Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Bloomington, Saint Louis Park, and Minnetonka — Minnesota Senator Kelly Morrison has introduced a bill that would require RCV for all state and federal elections. The bill is currently being considered by the Minnesota House, but it also has a companion that is awaiting a hearing.

RCV requires voters rank candidates in order to determine their preference. The candidate receiving less than 50% of the vote is eliminated. His votes are then redistributed to the candidate whose voters ranked him as the second choice. The process continues until one candidate has won 50 percent.

This process is fraught with errors, just as you might imagine. It can take weeks, if not months, to compile election results. Sometimes the wrong candidate is elected. In an Oakland school board race, for example, election officials announced — two months after the fact — that they got the count wrong. The winner is now suing for the seat.

RCV advocates argue that it is a reward for moderate, centrist politicians. This is because candidates must appeal to more constituents to get their 2nd or third ranking. This means that Republicans are being pushed to the side of Democrats, according to a Minnesota newspaper. Maine adopted RCV in 2018. Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin lost his congressional spot to a Democrat in round two of RCV despite receiving a plurality in the first round. In Alaska last November, Democrat Mary Peltola won its lone congressional seat despite 60 percent of Alaska residents voting for a Republican. RCV is how moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski defeated Trump-backed candidate Kelly Tshibaka won her primary. Murkowski would likely have lost to Tshibaka without RCV.

As previously reported by The Federalist, partisan Democratic activists — and even some moderate Republicans — are lobbying for states to switch to RCV so as to push out insurgent candidates who enjoy majority support for establishment-backed contenders who couldn’t win in a plurality system.

“There is a nationwide push to legitimize ranked-choice voting and bring it into general elections across the country,” The Federalist heard from Jason Snead who is the executive director for Honest Elections Project. “And the advocates for this which either hail from or are supported by the left are looking for any opportunity to do that in ‘bipartisan’ fashion. So I’m not a fan of changing election systems to strengthen or weaken the hands of particular demographics in society.”

RCV is currently being discussed by several states, including Minnesota, Utah. Illinois, Nevada, Connecticut, and Nevada. But some states wish to ban it. The Federalist previously reported that Montana and South Dakota, North Dakota and Idaho are currently considering legislation to prohibit RCV being adopted in their respective states.

Victoria Marshall is a staff journalist at The Federalist. Her writing has appeared in The Federalist, National Review, Townhall, and the New York Post. Hillsdale College, where she studied journalism and politics, graduated her in May 2021. Follow her Twitter @vemrshll.