What to Expect in the 2025 RCV Elections
2025 Elections At a glance
Election Day: Tuesday, November 4; early voting available through November 3.
Cities using RCV: Bloomington, Minneapolis, Minnetonka, St. Louis Park, St. Paul
Context: Over a million voters nationwide will use RCV this year. Minneapolis and St. Paul mayoral contests lead headlines, but all five cities have important local races.
More info: Races/candidates at RankYourVote.org (note: school board races are not held using RCV).
Since caucus season, FairVote Minnesota has partnered with election officials and community groups to educate voters, candidates, campaigns, and media to ensure smooth, successful RCV elections. RCV has been used in: Minneapolis (since 2009), St. Paul (2011), St. Louis Park (2019), Bloomington & Minnetonka (2021). Minneapolis elects Mayor, City Council, Park & Recreation Board, and Board of Estimate & Taxation (four-year terms); the other cities hold municipal elections every two years.
RCV Recap
One election, higher turnout: RCV replaces low-turnout primaries with a single November election when turnout is higher and more reflective of the overall population.
How ranking works (single-seat): Voters rank candidates. If no one has a majority of 1st-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and those ballots transfer to the next ranked choice. Repeat until a candidate wins a majority.
Multi-seat races: (e.g., Minneapolis Park Board (winning threshold = 25% +1), Board of Estimate & Taxation (winning threshold=33% + 1 ). Surplus votes are proportionally redistributed and eliminations continue until all seats are filled
What to expect on Election Night
All cities will report first-round results on Election Night. Any candidate meeting the winning threshold is elected.
Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Minnetonka, Bloomington: If no candidate meets the threshold on first choices, tabulation resumes the next day using the established manual spreadsheet method and all races are expected to be reported.
St. Paul (Ramsey County): This year using RCTab automated tabulation to produce Election Night results (in prior years, manual tabulation occurred Thu/Fri following Election Night).
Transparency & accuracy: Cast vote records and paper ballots are preserved and available for audits/recounts.
Understanding batch elimination: All city ordinances have batch elimination rules to reduce unnecessary rounds when multiple low-vote candidates have no mathematical path to victory.
Traditional rule: A set of lowest candidates may be eliminated together if the sum of their first choices does not exceed the next highest candidate.
The Minneapolis variation (since 2017): Under manual tabulation, Minneapolis also reviews candidates’ maximum potential totals across rankings to eliminate candidates who are mathematically unable to win. This happens when all of a candidate’s first, second, and third rankings added together would not be enough to overcome the current vote total of the leading candidate, in a single-seat race. This rule accelerated eliminations in the 2021 mayoral race, quickly moving the field to a final two. See the definitions of “mathematically impossible to be elected” in Minneapolis Ordinance 167.20 for exact statutory language.
Bottom line: The winner is the same under either method; the Minneapolis variant speeds manual counting. As the city transitions to automated tabulation, this added step would no longer be needed.
Understanding final round results: In most of the cities, the winner is reported as a percentage of all initial ballots cast. Some ballots become inactive if voters wish to rank only one or two candidates and their candidates don’t advance to the final round. In a single-seat race, a winner might appear below 50% of initial ballots, but will always hold a majority of active ballots in the final round.
Where results appear: City websites and the Minnesota Secretary of State site. Cities will post round-by-round tables and graphics showing vote transfers after the tabulation process is completed.
