Sen. Putnam, Other DFL Senators Speak in Favor of Ranked-Choice Voting

(KNSI) – On Thursday, St. Cloud DFL Sen. Aric Putnam spoke with several other state senators in favor of ranked-choice voting.

A Senate bill proposes required ranked-choice voting in state and federal elections and primaries, and local jurisdictions could opt-in to using ranked-choice voting as well. On a ranked-choice ballot, voters rank candidates in their order of preference, with #1 being their top choice. If no candidate receives 50 percent or more of the vote, an instant runoff occurs with the top two candidates.

“We all know runoff elections are done for the top vote-getters if no candidate receives a majority, but instead of having a completely separate election on another day — which is much more expensive and time-consuming — ranked-choice voting allows this to be done in a single, cost-effective election,” said Minority Whip Sen. Kent Eken, DFL-Audubon, who is the chief author of Senate File 218.

Putnam said he realizes a change like this could seem strange.

“But the other thing about change is it gives an opportunity to realize how strange what we already do is,” Putnam said. “Sometimes change isn’t as strange as what we already do and take as being normal, and when you look at our current electoral system, it doesn’t serve the people. It serves the parties, and that ought to be strange to us.”

Putnam argued that the current ballot system used in federal and state elections lets parties use third-party “spoiler candidates” to draw votes away from other candidates on the ballot.

St. Cloud DFL Sen. Aric Putnam speaks about ranked-choice voting during a press conference held by Minnesota DFL Senate members on April 15, 2021.

“We know as candidates that we all have the responsibility to earn every single vote that we get, but voters can be tricked, I think, sometimes, and it doesn’t serve their interest to have fraudulent candidates on ballots,” Putnam said.

Meanwhile, ranked-choice voting would help legitimate third-party candidates, says Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart, DFL-Minnetonka.

“Often people who support a third-party candidate may feel like they’re throwing away their vote,” Johnson Stewart said. “With ranked-choice voting, that doesn’t happen anymore, and we can simply prioritize who we’d like to see in office, so I’m very much in favor of this.”

A Republican-authored omnibus bill, Senate File 1831, proposes that cities, counties townships and school districts “may not adopt or enforce in any manner a rule, resolution, charter provision, or ordinance establishing ranked-choice voting as a method of voting, or any voting method similar to ranked-choice voting, for local offices within the political subdivision.”

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