Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

Heather J. Carlson, September 25, 2009

Minneapolis prepares to launch instant runoff voting this fall, an effort is under way to build support for this new voting system across southeast Minnesota.

Lake City resident Dag Knudsen is busy traveling the region boasting about the benefits of instant runoff voting, also known as ranked choice voting. On Thursday night, he made his case to a crowd of two dozen listeners at the Rochester Public Library. Knudsen serves on the board of FairVote Minnesota, an organization that supports this voting alternative.

"You cannot vote your conscience anymore. You have to vote strategically," he said.

The goal behind Instant Runoff Voting is to make sure that the winning candidate has won a majority of the votes. Under the current election system, candidates can end up winning with a plurality of the vote but less than 50 percent. Knudsen argues that instant runoff voting produces a fairer outcome because the candidate has broader support within the community. Also, he argues it gets rid of the fear voters have that choosing a certain candidate who likely will not win could end up helping a candidate they really do not like.

"That creates a dilemma for voters and unfairness for the candidates," he said.

So how does it work? Voters are given the chance to rank candidates according to their preferences. To help illustrate the process, Knudsen had the audience participate in a mock election. In this case, the candidates were pasta, bread, potatoes and rice.

Century High School senior Christen Pentek carefully marked her ballot. For her first choice, the 17-year-old chose bread. Second choice was rice, third pasta and fourth potatoes. The first step in the election was to count everyone's first choice. Under that scenario, pasta won the most votes, garnering 38.5 percent. But since pasta did not get more than 50 percent of the vote, there is no winner. The candidate with the least votes gets knocked out of the election, which in this case was rice. Election judges divvy out votes for the second choice candidates by those who had rice as their top choice.

This process continued until finally one candidate got more than 50 percent of the vote -- pasta. While Pentek's top pick of bread did not win, her second choice ended up as the winner. So what does the government student think of this idea?

She is open to it, but added, "I think any system would be flawed."

There are critics

Indeed, instant runoff voting has plenty of critics. Opponents argue it is too complicated and note that election machines are not currently capable of doing the calculations.

The League of Women Voters Rochester, who sponsored the meeting, have voted in support of instant runoff voting. In Minnesota, all charter cities have the potential to switch to this voting system -- including Rochester. To make that happen, it would require the city's charter commission to put forward a recommendation to the city council. If the council approved it unanimously, that would become the new voting system. If it did not win unanimous approval, it would be put on the ballot for voters to decide, Knudsen said.

Christen's mother Lynn Pentek also joined in the mock debate. While the likes the idea of the candidates with the broadest community support winning, she also wondered how the system would work on a large scale. "It makes for an interesting thought," she said. "I have to think about the pros and cons."