Lawsuit challenges Minneapolis instant runoff voting system
By STEVE KARNOWSKI, The Associated Press
2007-12-20 21:28:19.0
 

MINNEAPOLIS -
A citizens' group and five residents filed a lawsuit Thursday to try to block Minneapolis from trying an instant runoff voting system as early as its 2009 elections.

The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the system, an alternative method in which voters rank their choices for each office instead of casting just one vote for one candidate in a race.

Proponents of instant runoff voting say it produces a consensus majority winner when there are more than two candidates in a race, eliminates primaries and runoffs so voters go to the polls only once, and gives third parties a fairer chance. A few other cities use IRV, notably San Francisco.

Foes, including the Minnesota Voters Alliance, which filed the lawsuit in Hennepin County District Court, say IRV is so complicated that it undermines the right to vote.

"It clearly disenfranchises voters, and that's how it's a violation of the Minnesota and U.S. constitutions," said Andy Cilek, executive director of the group.

Minneapolis voters didn't understand what they were doing when they approved IRV in 2006, even though they backed it by a 65 percent margin, Cilek told reporters outside City Hall.

Cilek said his group has talked to "several hundred people" over the last six months and found that fewer than 1 percent could explain how it works.

"It's not the will of the voters if they don't even know what they voted for," he said.

Erick Kaardal, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit names Mayor R.T. Rybak, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson because they are doing nothing to block IRV, even though a letter from Assistant Attorney General Christie Eller to Ritchie in August raised questions about its constitutionality.

That opinion stopped short of flatly calling Minneapolis' system unconstitutional. But Eller wrote that if a 1915 Minnesota Supreme Court decision that struck down a different voting alternative procedure in Duluth is still to be followed, Minneapolis' probably wouldn't be permitted either.

Jeanne Massey, executive director of FairVote Minnesota, which campaigns for IRV, said it has survived court challenges on constitutional grounds in other states and she's confident it will survive here.

David Schultz, an election law expert at Hamline University who supports IRV and formerly served on FairVote's board, said the lawsuit is "badly drafted" and fails to make a convincing case that the system violates the principal of one person, one vote or diminishes anyone's right to vote.

Schultz also expressed doubt that the 1915 decision would hold legal force in this case because of the differences between the Duluth and Minneapolis systems and the evolution of the law since then.

"It's less of a lawsuit and more of a political speech," Schultz said.

Spokesmen for Rybak and Swanson declined to comment on the lawsuit itself. But Rybak spokesman Jeremy Hanson stressed that voters did approve IRV last year. "It's now our job to make that happen," he said. Hanson also said it hasn't been determined yet whether it will be implemented in 2009 or 2013.

"It clearly is a dramatic change in how we do elections locally and we want to make sure voters have confidence in the elections and our ability to do it right," he said.