By Steve Brandt
Published March 18th 2009 in Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Minnesota Supreme Court will take a speedier look at the legal challenge to instant-runoff voting in Minneapolis.
The court said it will grant an expedited review of the challenge, bypassing the state Court of Appeals, and it ordered a compressed schedule for submission of briefs. It also directed the city to tell when it needs a ruling in order to make a decision on which election format to use this fall.
Voters in 2006 approved the instant-runoff method, in which voters rank candidates by preference. The City Council adopted an ordinance last year to use the method starting in the Nov. 3 election, but the Minnesota Voters Alliance challenged its constitutionality. A Hennepin County District judge ruled against the alliance, granting a request by the city and instant-runoff voting advocates to dismiss the lawsuits. The alliance appealed.
The speed of the appeal is important because the city must decide in June whether to invoke a clause in the amendment that allows it to declare that it isn't ready to go ahead with the new method in 2009, reverting to the traditional winner-takes-all method.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.