Here we go again. Yet another election in Minnesota going into recount and the victor âÄî regardless of who he is âÄî will be elected by a minority of voters.
As a child I remember disputes in our classroom being decided by a poll of raised hands and the phrase âÄúmajority rules.âÄù ItâÄôs an expression that is almost inseparable to who we are as Americans and as Minnesotans.
Unfortunately those infamous rules of infallible fairness seem not to apply at the state level.
Minnesotans deserve something better; they deserve the right to be led by politicians that have been elected by a majority. Minnesota has a history of leaders that gain entrance into political offices without the support of most of the people. A system that allows this is simply not an effective democracy. There is a solution, one with which many Minnesotans are already familiar: ranked-choice voting.
RCV, also known as instant runoff voting, works by having voters number candidates in preferential order (1, 2, 3, etc.). In the event that no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and those ballots are then tallied by which of the remaining candidates appears as second preference. RCV eliminates the idea of âÄúwastedâÄù votes and âÄúspoiled electionsâÄù that arise out of split votes; with RCV voters do not need to worry about helping their least favorite candidate by supporting their favorite one, creating a nondiscriminatory elective structure.
Minneapolis and St. Paul have already implemented RCV and reaped the benefits.
The voting system in place statewide is obviously ineffectual and Minnesotans deserve better, more fair and more democratic means of electing our leaders.