October 30, 2015
Chris Dock | LPMN Chair

Another election day is upon us, and although there aren’t any national or state-wide races on the ballot, there are important decisions to be made at the local level. Choices need to be made for mayor, city council, and school board, and these are very important elections that allow voters to make an impact close to home. The Libertarian Party of Minnesota (LPMN) is proud to have nominated candidates for local races this year – Mary O’Connor for Brooklyn Center School Board and Kevin Bradley for St. Paul City Council, Ward 6. Another LPMN member, Steve Grotting, is running for City Council in Independence.

RCV imageAnother item on the ballot in Duluth is the option to implement Ranked-Choice Voting for future city elections. The LPMN believes that Ranked Choice Voting is an important tool for voters, as it provides them with the power to choose beyond the candidates hand-picked by the major parties without the fear of wasting their vote.

RCV is a fairly simple concept – you can identify your 1st choice, 2nd choice, and 3rd choice in an election, and all votes will be counted until a majority winner is identified. For example, if a single-seat election has candidates A, B, and C and you cast your votes as #1-C, #2-B, and you stop there because you really dislike candidate A, the following voting results might occur:

Candidate A – 40%
Candidate B – 35%
Candidate C – 25%

Since no candidate secured a majority of the votes, Candidate C would be dropped from the race and anyone who had Candidate C as their 1st choice (such as you) would have their vote redirected to their 2nd choice (in your case, Candidate B). The votes would then be re-tallied, and the impact on the results would depend on the #2 choices for those voters who had originally voted for Candidate C – some may go to Candidate A, and some may go to Candidate B. In the example above, Candidate B may still win the election if he/she can obtain a 16% to 9% advantage in the redirection of the 25% of votes that were originally cast for Candidate C.

Without RCV, Candidate A would have won the election without a majority of votes, and your vote for Candidate C may have felt like a “wasted” vote. Perhaps you would have opted not to vote for Candidate C for fear they could not win, and you would have voted for Candidate B in an effort to defeat Candidate A, even though Candidate B wasn’t truly your favorite candidate.

Opponents of RCV say it is confusing – which implies an assumption of ignorance on the part of voters. RCV ensures your vote will never be wasted.  You aren’t forced to utilize all three selections that are offered to you in RCV – if you want to continue voting the way you always have, you can just vote for your #1 candidate choice and be done. RCV provides an option for those voters who want more voting flexibility with the assurance that the ultimate winner has to be supported on a majority of the counted ballots.

To learn more about Ranked-Choice Voting, visit Fair Vote Minnesota’s website which provides helpful information on how the process works.

The Libertarian Party of Minnesota has joined forces with the other minor parties in Minnesota (C3PO – the Coalition of Third Party Organizers) to promote the concept of Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) to Minnesota’s voters. We hope the voters of Duluth consider this option carefully, and choose the option they believe provides themselves with the strongest voice in future elections.

Concerned about the expansion of government control and the erosion of individual liberty? Please consider joining and becoming active with the Libertarian Party of Minnesota. Libertarians support liberty on all issues, all the time! Libertarianism is a philosophical and political movement to promote personal freedom, strong civil liberties, a genuinely free marketplace, and peace.

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