Roper: Despite critiques, ranked-choice voting is better than the alternatives

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I feel a bit anxious ahead of a significant Minneapolis election on Tuesday. But one thing is putting me at ease: ranked-choice voting.

Some readers cited my recent column about an alliance among Mayor Jacob Frey’s top challengers as evidence that, to quote one commenter, ranked-choice voting is “bad for democracy.” The so-called “slate for change” is certainly an unusual twist in the city’s 16-year experiment with ranked-choice voting.

But imagine the alternative to this system.

Let’s say Minneapolis held a low-turnout primary in mid-August, before most voters were paying attention. Frey and Sen. Omar Fateh almost certainly would have advanced to the general election — especially if Fateh had briefly secured the DFL endorsement.

The citywide electorate would then have been forced to decide in November between a polarizing incumbent and his farthest-left challenger. These are the kind of binary choices we bemoan at other levels of government.

Or, like some cities, Minneapolis could have skipped the primary and let all candidates run in the general election.

So that’s why, as we close this thing out, I’m seeing the merits of ranked-choice voting. Voters have heard from four top candidates who collectively illustrate that there is in fact nuance within Minneapolis’ political divide. And on Election Day, residents can rank the candidate or candidates they do like — without fear of wasting their vote — along with a backup option if their top picks are eliminated.

This is especially pertinent for those voters who find themselves in the mushy middle, unhappy with Frey and Fateh as first-choice options.

They might gravitate toward Rev. DeWayne Davis or Jazz Hampton, who have brought valuable perspective that has enriched the conversation. Davis and Hampton showed that a spectrum of candidates beyond Frey oppose rent control, for example, and elevated leadership style as a theme of the campaign.

One of the selling points of ranked-choice voting in Minneapolis was that it would reduce “political mudslinging,” as the Star Tribune described the 2006 referendum to change voting methods.

That doesn’t feel like our current political environment. Mud is everywhere.

Then there’s the political action committees.

The optimism around ranked-choice voting didn’t anticipate the rise of well-funded PACs, enabled by the 2010 Citizens United ruling, that have poisoned city politics. This election has been saturated with PACs that are flooding the scene with negativity.

The most prominent of the PACs, the Frey-supporting All of Mpls, has raised $1.2 million this year. Its top contributors are the Downtown Council, the Minnesota Multi Housing Association (an apartment owner/manager trade group) and the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce — each of which will have to work with whoever is elected.

Importantly, these city-focused PACs now operate outside of election season as well. As Charlie Rybak wrote in an op-ed in April, Minneapolis’ constant PAC activity has created a “new political-industrial complex where consultants earn their checks by maximizing tension, pumping people with scary, negative information to justify the fundraising efforts that pay their bills.”

It’s a real problem that likely impedes our local leaders from finding common ground. Is it naive to ask for some PAC disarmament in the wake of this election? Perhaps funnel the leftover money into something that will unite the city?