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The Cities Blog
Curtis Gilbert

Ranked choice voting explained in under 2 minutes

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Don't understand St. Paul's new ranked choice voting system? MPR News is here to help!

Two years ago, when Minneapolis switched to the system for its municipal elections, Molly Bloom and I put together this handy little video. It explains how ranked choice (a.k.a. instant runoff) voting works in less than two minutes.

The system comes into play only in St. Paul city council races with three or more candidates running. So if you live in wards 1, 2 or 3, you'll have the option of ranking the candidates for city council.

St. Paul school board elections still work the old fashioned way -- vote for up to four candidates, no ranking necessary. There's no election today in Minneapolis.