Instant Runoff Voting beats a hand recount

December 31, 9:07 AMSouth St. Paul ExaminerRob Shirk

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Karnak says the winner is...

Majority rules. Not really. In the three presidential elections prior to Barack Obama in 2008, the winner received less than a majority of the popular vote.

In Minnesota, in 1998, not a single state-wide constitutional officer was elected with a majority of the vote. Most notably, Jesse (Governor Turnbuckle) Ventura was elected with 37 percent of the vote, the second lowest winning percentage in state history. Minnesota could adopt Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and it could be in place as early as the next election cycle.

The term "Instant Runoff Voting" was coined because the method of transferring votes from defeated candidates to continuing candidates is just like a runoff election except that it is accomplished on one ballot.

IRV is a ranked ballot method of voting that results in a winner chosen by a majority of the voters. The voters rank the candidates in order of preference. Each voter has one vote which counts for the highest preferred candidate that can use it.

First choices are counted (one, two, or three). If no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is defeated, and those votes are transferred to the next ranked (one or two) candidate on each ballot. The votes are recounted.The process continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes and is declared the winner.

Ultimately, the problem might be with the voters, themselves, even though we have the most literate metropolitan area in the country. As the current screwed up ballots are made available to see, Big Goof and Little Goof could really scratch their heads trying to figure out ranking one, two, three, or four in order.

In a contest so close as the one that has unfolded in Minnesota, a hand recount is likely the only alternative to determine who is number one and who is number two to figure out how number three's (Dean Barkley) votes are alloted. The election between Landslide Al Franken and Landslide Norm Coleman is an anomoly. It may go down as the closest race in the history of the United States, but IRV would save us the indignity of staring at Big Goof and Little Goof's ballots and the money a hand recount costs in almost all other instances.

It would merely take a legislative bill to pass IRV and it would take somebody with cojones in the legislature to get IRV into law. It would take the same type of anatomy for a governor to sign it.

Tuesday, Senate Republican campaign chief John Cornyn (Texas) virtually guaranteed a court battle if Landslide Al Franken is declared the winner. In a vitrolic, scathing statement he accused the Democrats of “creating additional chaos and disorder”. So much for being genial.

Al Franken is falsely declaring victory based on an artificial lead created on the back of the double counting of ballots.  Minnesotans will not accept a recount in which some votes are counted twice, and I expect the Senate would have a problem seating a candidate who has not duly won an election - Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee John Cornyn (Texas).

Landslide Al Franken's campaign hit back, pointing out the Democrat never declared victory and accusing Landslide Norm Coleman's campaign of creating the recent chaos.

Minnesota's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty ultimately holds the cards in the final act, as he'd have to sign a formal notification to the Senate stipulating that either candidate is the victor.