The Hottest Political Reform of the Moment Gains Ground
ST. PAUL, Minn. — At 8 a.m. this past March, on a day that almost anywhere but St. Paul, Minn. would have been considered terrifyingly cold and windy, the advocates and the opponents of a plan to revamp Minnesota’s elections squared off at the State Capitol complex where the House Elections Committee was about to convene. “Squared off” perhaps casts these mostly aging militants in too un-Minnesota a light: They held signs and milled around on opposite sides of the crowded space. Still, it seemed like quite a show of passion for an innovation better known to political scientists than to voters.
At issue was ranked choice voting, a wonky reform that advocates are convinced will help drain the toxins from our national politics. Ranked choice voting allows voters to list their top three or more candidates, eliminates the last-place finisher and then redistributes votes to the remaining candidates until one emerges with a majority. The approach has been quietly making gains across the country, but it burst into the public consciousness last year after it helped a centrist Democrat thwart Sarah Palin’s bid for Congress in Alaska.
Though a limited number of cities in Minnesota already use ranked choice voting, the bill before the committee would extend the system to all state and federal elections and give all municipalities the option of adopting the reform. Alaska and Maine also have ranked choice voting, though in both states it was adopted through voter referendums; Minnesota would be the first to establish ranked choice voting through the legislative process.
I asked a white-haired gentleman in the orange T-shirt sported by the pro-ranked choice voting team why he had braved the elements to show his support. His name was John Olsen, and he hailed from the prosperous Twin Cities suburb of St. Louis Park, which for the last four years has elected local officials through ranked choice voting. Olsen told me that something that defied the laws of our bitterly divided politics had happened under the new system: “If you put a sign on your lawn for a candidate, one of the other candidates will still knock on your door to say, ‘Could I convince you to make me your second choice?’” Ranked choice voting, he said, had forced candidates to reach out beyond their base.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/16/ranked-choice-voting-minnesota-00089505
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