voters

It's that time again: Minneapolis has citywide elections (official site) every four years in the election "off-year." This year's election on November 3rd will have two new twists: the most dramatic change is the shift to Ranked Choice Voting or Instant Runoff Voting for city offices (promoted by FairVote MN); also, the Board of Estimates and Taxation may get dissolved by referendum, consolidating more power with the Mayor and City Council. [More: "The auditor would report to the audited"]

The official outreach website for the City's IRV is at VoteMinneapolis.org and they are tabling local events until Election Day. Find your precinct and sample ballot here. Multi-lingual election info is available en Español (Spanish), Hmoob (Hmong) and Soomaaliga (Somali) - call 311 or 612-673-3000 for language help. Public awareness of how it works, especially among disadvantaged communities, looks really bad right now.

What's on the ballot? Mayor, City Council wards, the 2 at-large members of the Board of Estimate and Taxation, and the Park and Recreation Board (3 At-Large & 6 District Commissioners). The vote is expected to take several weeks to completely count everything (one reason the city cites for not calling it "instant" runoff).

Will Ranked Choice Voting mix up Minneapolis' dull & entrenched political establishment? Probably, for one reason in particular: The word from inside the RT Rybak for "Mayor" campaign is that the highly paid consultants running everything are "lollygagging" around waiting for the 2010 governor's race to start, but they don't really care about the city races.

Below the fold, all the candidates and links for mayor... Going deeper: 2009 Minneapolis election rundown: City Council, our favorite shady local deals & more!

<p>Like greyhounds being led around a track, far too long American voters have gone through the paces believing the way we have always done things is the way we always should.