Ranked choice voting—what to know and how to prepare as Election Day approaches

Summer is still in full swing, but candidates and county and state election officials are preparing for the off-year general election this fall.

This year the general election will be on Nov. 4. Minnesota voters will not be selecting representatives to send to Congress or the legislature, or state office holders. But there will be municipal and school district elections in many Minnesota communities.

Voters in five metro cities will use ranked choice voting as they cast their ballots in local nonpartisan elections. The cities that use this system for voting include Minneapolis, St Paul, St Louis Park, Minnetonka and Bloomington.

“Ranked choice voting is a method where, instead of getting a ballot where you get to vote for one candidate, in Hennepin County cities, you get to rank up to three candidates in your order of preference,” explained said Karl Landskroener with Hennepin County Elections. “In St Paul, they do things a little differently. They can rank up to six candidates.”

By using ranked choice voting, voters can express support for more than one candidate in a race for mayor or city council and in Minneapolis, for the Board of Estimate and Taxation and seats on the Park and Recreation Board.

‘It’s very simple for a voter. You can rank candidates in the order that you support them, or you can choose to vote for only one candidate,” Landskroener said. “If a candidate receives a majority, 50% or more of those first choice votes, they win. That’s the ballgame.”

However, if no candidate has enough votes to win a majority, the candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated. This process continues until a candidate has enough votes to win. Election officials only use a voter’s second or third choice if their first choice has already been eliminated.

Landskroener said Minnesota cities have opted to adopt ranked choice voting because of the benefits associated with the system.

“Rather than having a municipal primary election, the top two candidates move on to the November general election. For voters it means we do not have the field narrowed or winnowed for us when we go to vote in November,” he said.

“This saves cities money without having to hold that municipal primary. It also means candidates have a longer time to campaign and get out and talk to people.”

Meanwhile, voters in one Minnesota House district will soon be going to the polls to select their state representative.

For 20 years, House District 34B, which includes Brooklyn Park and a few precincts in Coon Rapids and Champlin, was represented by the late Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman.

Hortman and her husband Mark were killed in their Brooklyn Park home on June 14.

With that House seat now vacant, a special election has been called for voters to select a representative to succeed Hortman.

Filing for candidates who want to run to fill the House seat opened on July 16. Candidates have the opportunity to continue to file through the close of business on July 22.

Currently at least three DFL candidates have tossed their respective hats into the ring: Brooklyn Park City Council member Christian Eriksen, former Brooklyn Park city council member Xp Lee, and Hennepin County prosecutor Erickson Saye.

“With that number of DFL candidates filing, it looks like we are going to have an Aug. 12 special primary election,” said Landskroener. “Then the special election will be on Sept 16.”