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Description
Ranked-choice Voting:
The City Council held a public hearing on the issue at its May 18, 2020 meeting and then unanimously forwarded the proposed ballot question to the City’s Charter Commission, where another public hearing was held on June 11, 2020. On July 9, the Charter Commission voted to reject the proposed amendment to the City Charter by a vote of 7-5. However, the Charter Commission’s action is only advisory to the City Council. On July 27, the City Council voted to proceed with placing the question on the ballot for the General Election.
Ranked choice voting, also called “instant runoff voting” or “preferential voting,” is a process that allows voters to rank their choices for each office. First choice votes are counted. If no candidate has a majority of the votes (more than 50%), the candidate with the least number of first-choice votes is eliminated. Voters who picked the eliminated candidate as their first choice have their second-choice vote counted instead. This process repeats until one candidate has a majority.
A
Hello,
I'm
nikki
kohler
co-president
of
the
bloomington
league
of
women
voters.
The
league
of
women
voters
is
dedicated
to
informing
voters
on
issues
of
the
day.
We
are
a
non-partisan
political
organization
which
encourages
informed
and
active
participation
in
government
and
influences
public
policy
through
education
and
advocacy.
A
The
league
of
women
voters
never
endorses
any
candidate
or
political
party.
On
november
3rd
bloomington
voters
will
be
voting
on
two
ballot
initiatives,
one
related
to
solid
waste
collection
and
one
on
ranked
choice.
Voting.
The
purpose
of
this
video
is
to
highlight
the
ballot
initiative
dealing
with
ranked
choice,
voting
the
league
of
women
voters.
A
B
B
One
thing
that
I
want
to
mention
that
it
will
be
a
little
bit
different
as
you
consider
ranked
choice.
Voting
is
the
city
of
minneapolis.
Has
everyone
on
the
ballot
every
four
years?
That's
different.
Most
cities,
like
you
in
many
in
bloomington,
have
their
offices
staggered,
so
you
have
an
election
every
two
years
hours
is
every
four
years,
so
back
in
2006,
the
citizens
of
minneapolis
approved
the
choice
of
ranked
choice,
voting
as
their
choice
of
method
of
how
they
want
to
choose
their
candidates.
B
B
B
The
way
I
describe
ranked
choice
voting
is
just
like
going
to
a
restaurant
and
the
menu
has
four
different
sandwiches
rolls:
beef,
chicken,
hammond
tuna.
Okay,
you
really
like
roast
beef,
and
you
want
that.
However,
you
just
found
out
that
they
don't
have
any,
and
so
you
have
to
decide.
What
is
your
second
choice?
What
would
you
like
to
eat
and
it
may
be
chicken
and,
if
they're
out
of
that?
Well
then
I'll
take
the
tuna.
B
C
In
most
elections,
you
only
vote
for
one
candidate
for
each
office,
but
in
some
elections
voters
can
rank
three
or
more
candidates
for
each
office.
It's
called
ranked
choice.
Voting.
Here's
an
example
of
how
it
works.
All
of
the
candidates
will
be
listed
on
the
ballot
in
three
columns,
make
your
first
choice
vote
in
column,
one
by
filling
in
the
oval
of
the
candidate
you'd,
most
like
to
win
vote
for
your
second
choice
in
column
two
and
make
your
third
choice
in
column.
Three.
That's
all
there
is
to
it.
Now.
C
Let's
see
how
the
votes
are
counted.
Let's
say
there
are
four
candidates
running
for
mayor
asha,
zach,
omar
and
lucy.
Once
the
polls
close,
we
count
all
the
first
choice,
votes
first
to
be
elected
mayor,
a
candidate
needs
more
than
half
the
votes.
In
this
example,
asha
has
more
than
half
of
the
votes,
so
she's
declared
the
winner.
C
However,
if
no
candidate
gets
more
than
half
the
votes,
we
start
eliminating
candidates
and
counting
the
next
choices
of
those
who
voted.
In
this
example,
zack
is
the
candidate
with
the
smallest
number
of
first
choice
votes,
so
he
is
cut.
We
use
the
second
choice,
votes
on
zach's
ballots
and
count
those
voters
second
choices.
Instead,
if
one
of
the
remaining
candidates
now
has
more
than
half
of
the
total
votes,
that
candidate
is
declared
the
winner,
if
not
the
next
lowest
candidate
lucy
is
eliminated.
C
Her
votes
are
now
counted
for
the
next
choice
on
the
ballot,
some
of
lucy's
votes
went
to
zack,
who
was
already
eliminated,
so
those
new
votes
for
zach
instead
count
for
those
voters.
Third
choice
candidate:
we
are
now
down
to
two
candidates
and
omar
clearly
has
more
than
half
of
the
votes
that
makes
him
the
winner.
That's
how
ranked
choice
voting
works
for
more
information
on
ranked
choice,
voting
visit
our
website.
B
It's
a
lot
simpler
and
easier,
particularly
as
you
know,
we
have
a
large
city.
I
bring
that
up,
because
we
have
learned
a
lot
over
the
last
several
years.
Each
time
we
have
an
election,
we
review
it
for
lessons
learned.
How
can
we
improve
it?
Is
there
new
technology-
and
you
can
see
over
the
three
elections
that
we
have
conducted
for
ranked
choice?
Voting
it's
dramatically
changed
as
far
as
the
time
that
it
takes,
for
example,
in
2009.
B
It
took
us
15
days
to
manually
count
and
reallocate
those
choices
to
determine
who
the
winner
was
2013.
You
may
remember
had
35
candidates
for
mayor,
and
that
was
extremely
long
and
because
of
that
was
over
24
hours
in
which
we
had
a
process
just
that
with
new
improvements
in
2017,
we
were
down
to
three
and
a
half
hours
before
we
declared
all
candidates
for
every
race.
There's
new
technology
out
there.
B
We
hope
to
be
utilizing
that
in
our
2021,
but
I
wanted
to
bring
that
up,
because
that
is
a
unique
situation
when
you
vote
ranked
choice
voting.
Lastly,
I
just
wanted
to
mention
that,
since
2009,
the
city
has
always
contracted
with
a
company
that
does
a
random
survey
to
get
a
feel
of
how
our
citizens
feel
about
rank
choice.
Voting
in
this
particular
slide.
It
shows
you
that
they're
pretty
confident
they
have
no
problems
with
it.
B
I
believe
that
any
jurisdiction
who
is
interested
in
this
can
be
successful
as
well
as
their
voters
in
voting,
since
we
have
done
a
lot
in
ranked
choice,
voting
and
have
learned
from
scratch,
so
to
speak,
we
provide
all
our
information
on
our
website
so
that
any
jurisdiction
who
is
interested
in
ranked
choice
voting.
It's
all
there.
It's
a
wealth
of
information.
B
I
do
want
to
caution.
You,
though,
that
at
the
time
of
this
recording
we
are
in
the
process
of
moving
our
website
to
a
different
platform,
so
it
may
not
look
the
same
as
what
you
see
on
the
screen
and,
lastly,
we
love
data.
You
can
actually
see
the
data
on
our
results
tab
and
we
do
comprehensive
reports
to
our
city
council.
So
if
you
want
more
narrative,
detailed
information
on
the
process
of
ranked
choice
voting
and
how
each
year
was
handled,
you
can
look
under
the
data
resources
tab
with
that.