Media Memo: What to Expect from the 2023 Ranked-Choice Elections in Minnesota
Five Minnesota cities — Bloomington, Minneapolis, Minnetonka, St. Louis Park, and St. Paul — use ranked choice voting (RCV) for their municipal elections. This memorandum is the third and final in our series to educate the media, candidates and other interested parties on ranked-choice elections in Minnesota this fall. You can access our first two media memos covering how RCV works, FairVote MN’s education efforts, Minnesota’s experience with RCV, and how RCV impacts local elections here.
How RCV works
Ranked Choice Voting allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference and ensures winners with a majority in a single, decisive and cost-effective election. In ranked-choice elections, voters rank as many or as few candidates as they like from their favorite to least favorite: first choice, second choice, and so on.
If a candidate receives a majority (50% + 1) of first-choice rankings, that candidate wins. However, if no candidate receives a majority, then the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated, and these ballots now count for those voters’ second choices. This process continues until one candidate reaches a majority and wins.
For municipal elections this fall, Bloomington, Minneapolis, Minnetonka and St. Louis Park allow voters to rank up to three choices, while St. Paul allows voters to rank up to six choices. For more information about local RCV elections see rankyourvote.org and the cities’ election websites:
RCV Requires a broad majority coalition
To win under RCV, candidates need to earn a majority (50% + 1) of continuing ballots in the final round, and this means candidates should be striving to build broad coalitions of voter support. Unlike a traditional plurality election, candidates who focus solely on their core supporters are unlikely to win under RCV. Of course, candidates should earn as many first-choice votes as possible from their base, but they also need to go beyond that base and earn second and later choice votes to reach a majority. Accordingly, candidates should be reaching out to as many voters and communities of voters as possible, and appealing to the issues that matter to a broad majority of voters. For the same reason, attacking your opponents can backfire since that may alienate that opponents’ core supporters, and you are unlikely to earn those second or third choice votes. In short, building a broad coalition of voters is the best way to win a ranked-choice election.
RCV eliminated costly low turnout local primaries
Unlike state partisan elections, all local elections are nonpartisan, meaning that the purpose of a local primary is to narrow the field of candidates to the top two (or double the number of seats to fill), regardless of party affiliation. Local primaries are typically very low turnout elections.
However, RCV combines two rounds of voting — a local primary and a general — into a single “instant runoff” election. Voters only have to make one trip to the polls, and candidates can focus on campaigning for one election instead of two. With one election in November, campaigns are more competitive, and voter turnout is higher, more representative, and more diverse. RCV automatically increases voter participation in local elections by eliminating that low-turnout primary and allowing voters to consider the full slate of candidates in the general election.
Ballot items not impacted by RCV
Note that several items on the ballot are not impacted by RCV. First, in Bloomington, Minnetonka, St. Louis Park, and St. Paul, voters will be selecting school board members, and those elections do not use RCV; they use traditional plurality at-large voting. School boards are statutory jurisdictions governed by state law on elections, unlike charter cities that have permission to adopt RCV for municipal elections through a charter amendment process.
Second, there are some races that are not competitive or have fewer than three candidates on the ballot. In races with only two candidates, while RCV is technically available, it effectively runs and acts more like a traditional campaign since there are, effectively, only two viable choices. Consequently, you are more likely to see the typical negative campaigning that you have with a traditional election and a binary choice. Races with three or more candidates trigger the need for RCV, or an instant runoff.
Finally, voters in some cities, including Bloomington, Minnetonka, and St. Paul, have ballot measures to consider. RCV is not used for ballot measures; voters either vote yes or no. A local ballot question to amend a city’s charter, like the one in Minnetonka, needs 51% YES votes of those voting on the question to pass, while other ballot questions, like city tax or school referendums require 50% plus one of those voting on the question to pass.
Minnetonka Ballot Measure to Repeal RCV
Passed in 2020 by 55% of Minnetonka voters, RCV was put back on the ballot in Minnetonka this year by a group opposed to this change. Voters will decide whether to repeal RCV and revert back to the old two-step municipal primary system in place prior to 2020. For more information on that ballot measure see: RCV Minnetonka’s September Press Release.
When to Expect Election Results
The announcement of election results will depend on the city and the number of races that require RCV tabulation.
For all cities, in races where a candidate reaches a majority with first-choice votes on Election Day, officials will announce those candidates as unofficial winners on election night. This timing is no different than any other election.
Races where no candidate reaches a majority on Election Day, however, will require additional rounds of counting. Since automated software used in other jurisdictions has not yet been approved for Minnesota, each city will use a manual tabulation process. Cities in Hennepin County that use RCV––Bloomington, Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, and Minnetonka––will use the same process that Minneapolis and St. Louis Park have used for several election cycles, a spreadsheet-assisted manual tabulation using the cast vote record (a record of all voters’ rankings). There will not be a hand count of the ballots. In contrast, St. Paul will conduct a hand count of the ballots as it has traditionally done, and that process will begin on Thursday, November 9. This process is open to the public. Both counting methods are highly transparent and accurate.
Anticipated (unofficial) RCV election results:
Bloomington: Next day, Nov. 8
Minneapolis: Next day, Nov. 8
Minnetonka: Next day, Nov. 8
St. Louis Park: Next day, Nov. 8
St. Paul: Friday, Nov. 10 or later
All results can be found on the cities’ websites noted above or on the Secretary of State’s website. Canvassing boards will meet in most cities the following week to certify the official results.
How to Understand Election Day (First Round) Results
Election night results will report the first choice, second choice, and additional choice votes each candidate received. If a candidate has reached a majority with first-choice votes, officials will announce those candidates as unofficial winners on election night. However, for those races with more than two candidates where no one has reached a majority, final ranked-choice election results – and winning candidates – cannot be determined from these vote tallies, and we caution the media, campaigns and supporters from drawing any conclusions from these initial election night reports. The RCV counting process and transfer of ballots from eliminated candidates will determine the ultimate election results, not by how many second choice or third choice votes a candidate received in the first round. For example, if a candidate does not receive enough first choices to remain viable and is eliminated, it doesn’t matter if that candidate received a lot of second-choice support. Likewise, a candidate who receives a lot of first choices but not as many second and additional choices may go on to win if enough second and additional choices from eliminated candidates go their way. The number of second and third choices a candidate received in the first round of counting is insufficient to determine the winner.
Election results will also report the candidates’ first and later choice votes as a percentage of initial ballots cast. As the cities proceed with rounds of counting, some ballots are exhausted and do not continue to the next round if the voter did not express a preference for any candidates remaining on the ballot. Ballot exhaustion is normal and can occur when voters choose to vote for only one or two choices. If their candidate or candidates are eliminated in the runoff process, their ballot no longer continues to count toward the winner. The winning candidate will always have a majority of ballots continuing in the final round. For more information about the Minneapolis RCV tabulation process see the city’s election website on RCV.
Regardless of the ultimate winner for offices in all five cities, the value of RCV is that it encourages a diverse slate of candidates to run and requires candidates to build broad majority coalitions of support to win — and be responsive to that broad coalition once in office. So RCV not only changes the dynamics of the campaign but should also influence how city leaders govern. RCV gives more power to voters to select candidates who align with their issues and their values, and voters are adept at deciding those rankings. Ranked-choice elections give more power to the voter to decide the future of their city, and that’s exactly where the power should reside.
For questions or interviews, contact Jeanne Massey (Jeanne.Massey@fairvotemn.org; 612-850-6897) or Erin Zamoff (Erin.Zamoff@fairvotemn.org; 952-334-8313). We will be providing election results analysis in the days following the election.
