By John Hottinger

On the day of the St. Paul city primary, I walked into my precinct voting place and marveled at the quiet and peaceful solitude. Standing in a line of one, I picked up my ballot, went to my voting booth (my privacy protected by barriers and the fact there was no one else in the adjoining booths) and carefully cast my single vote. With my footsteps echoing in the virtually deserted auditorium, I went over and placed my ballot in the machine and then chatted briefly with the amiable election judges who were happy to have some company, albeit brief. I left pleased at having done my civic duty…and irked that some potentially good people seeking City Council seats might lose in what could only feebly be described as a reflection of democracy.

According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, less than five percent of voters turned out at this year's St. Paul primary election. It marked a thirty year low point in voter participation. The votes of those five percent narrowed down the list of candidates for City Council. We could debate about why the turnout was so low - a busy workday, lack of news coverage, out of touch campaigns, voter apathy - but there is no argument that a 5,584 voter turnout is abysmal. I’d rather see my tax dollars spent to help the poor and to provide early childhood education, not to support a primary system that is very meaningful for those who lose, but not very democratic.

Fortunately, there is a way to fix this undemocratic and costly approach to city primaries. The City Council could vote to hold the primary and the general election on the same day! How? The Council could vote to use Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) to elect city officials in November when turnout is historically several times higher than the oft pitiful primary. In addition to reflecting the will of many more of the city's diverse voters, IRV would also ensure a majority winner while providing opportunity for victory to all candidates.

With IRV, St. Paulites could compress the primary and general into one November voting act. IRV allows voters to rank the candidates, not just make a single choice. Instead of filling in a single bubble, we would rank a full slate of council candidates in order of preference. If any candidate won a majority of first place votes, the election would be complete and a winner declared. If no candidate won a majority of first place votes, then an "instant runoff" would occur, with the candidate in last place eliminated. The ballots cast for the now-eliminated candidate would be reallocated to the second ranked candidate of those voters. This instant runoff process, involving dropping the last-place candidate and reallocating his or her votes, continues until one candidate gains a majority of votes.

In addition to saving tax and campaign dollars, IRV is proven to create more civil and informative campaigns. Because IRV motivates candidates to seek to be the second or third choices of voters, it tends to lessen the negativity of campaigns – and can even lead to coalition-building among candidates allied on local issues.

The first step in this direction is underway in Saint Paul right now and I have joined in signing the IRV petition to advance IRV to the ballot. Sufficient signatures have been gathered to put the iniative on the ballot (about the same number as the total turnout in the primary), but efforts continue to be made to have the Council approve the IRV initiative. The project is being led by Better Ballot initiative (www.stpaul.betterballotcampaign.org). Saint Paul should join Minneapolis, Oakland, San Francisco, Takoma Park (Maryland), Burlington and over a dozen other cities that have reformed their city elections with a better way to vote.

The feedback from cities which have already held IRV elections is good. Exit polls indicate that the change in approach did not confuse voters. 87% of the voters in San Francisco understood well or very well how to use IRV. Compared to the traditional two rounds of voting, 69% of San Franciscans preferred IRV.

Many progressives have focused a lot of time and effort over the last few election cycles on improving voter turnout and bringing subtly disenfranchised voters to the polls. That is an admirable, vital and necessary task given examples of voter intimidation and voter repression that have been growing at an alarming rate. The successes are muted, however, if those voters don’t get the chance to have their votes fully affect the outcome and if some officials get elected with less than majority voter support. IRV is an excellent enhancement of the effort to assure election outcomes that more adequately represent the will of all of the people.

My hope is that IRV will not stop in cities like Saint Paul and Minneapolis, but that the Legislature will ultimately approve this method for statewide partisan elections, where we have a winner-take-all election system that works fine if there are only two candidates but often fails when the vote is split among three or more candidates and the winner often tops out with less than a majority – sometimes far less. Instant Runoff Voting would ensure a majority winner in our increasingly politically diverse state.

John Hottinger is a former Minnesota Senator and Senate Majority Leader. He lives in Saint Paul.