Election Day: Minneapolis voters try new voting system

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- After months of training, anticipation, and some uncertainty, Minneapolis has arrived at Election Day 2009 -- the first time the city's voters will cast ballots using a method called Ranked Choice Voting.

When voters get their ballots Tuesday, they won't just choose one candidate for elected offices, unless they want to. Instead, they'll have the opportunity to rank their first, second and third choices.

Seven other American cities use the same method of voting in municipal elections, and generally speaking, voters seem get the hang of ranked-choice ballots fairly quickly.

The issue comes when the ballots are counted. If no candidate receives the minimum number of first-choice choice votes needed to win the election, those second- and third-choice votes are counted by hand.

That can take time. Maybe weeks.

At a workshop for reporters last month, the city's election department said winners won't likely be known on Election Night.

"If you see that a particular candidate has a profound majority, that's a pretty good indication that, likely, after the hand count, they'll go on to be a successful candidate" said Pat O'Connor, the city's interim elections director. "We're not going to say it, though."

The city's ballot machines only count one column of votes and can't factor in the second and third choice votes.

John Arntz, the elections director in San Francisco, said he thinks the Minneapolis method of sorting through ranked-choice ballots by hand will be challenging.

"I think, ultimately, voters are going to get the same answers they would if machines were used," he said. "But for the (elections) department, I think it's a big challenge."

San Francisco is the largest city currently using Ranked Choice Voting, and it uses machines to count the ballots. The other U.S. cities are Burlington (VT), Takoma Park (MD), Hendersonville (NC), Cambridge (MA), Pierce County (WA), and Aspen (CO).

London also uses the system, as do the countries of Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Saint Paul voters will decide Tuesday if their city will become the second in Minnesota to switch to Ranked Choice Voting.

In Minneapolis, elections officials say voters should know the results of Tuesday's contests by mid-December, at the latest.

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