Minnetonka residents overwhelmingly rejected a measure Tuesday to repeal ranked choice voting as the method used for electing city officials.
In Tuesday’s election, residents were asked:
“Shall the Minnetonka City Charter be amended to repeal ranked choice voting as the method for electing the mayor and city council and reinstate the use of a primary (if needed) and general election?”
About 58% of voters said “no,” compared to 41% who would like to return to traditional elections.
Minnetonka is one of five cities in Minnesota that uses ranked choice voting; the others are Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis Park, and Bloomington.
In 2020, a City Council-led referendum to turn Minnetonka into a ranked choice voting city passed with 55 percent of the vote.
Several DFL Party elected officials and activists lined up to support keeping ranked choice voting in Minnetonka, including Gov. Tim Walz, Congressman Dean Phillips, state Rep. Laurie Pryor of Minnetonka, and state Sens. Steve Cwodzinski of Eden Prairie and Kelly Morrison of Deephaven. Minnetonka Mayor Brad Wiersum along with two former mayors supported the effort to repeal ranked choice voting.
The ranked choice voting movement in Minnesota has been pushed for the last several years by FairVote Minnesota, which raised nearly $1 million in 2020 for campaigning and outreach activities to promote RCV. Some of FairVote Minnesota’s prominent donors include Kathryn Murdoch, daughter-in-law to media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Campaign finance reports show that the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting in Minnetonka received $16,500 from FairVote in its effort to defeat the ballot measure.
Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature carried a bill last session to make the state the third in the nation to use ranked choice voting in all legislative and statewide elections. That bill was significantly watered down after Secretary of State Steve Simon testified at the legislature that he didn’t think Minnesota was ready for RCV statewide.
Additionally, a University of Minnesota report released in March argued that the evidence “fails to support” RCV advocates’ “promises for improvements over today’s system.”
Hank Long contributed to this report.
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
