Last year, instant runoff voting
was approved by an overwhelming majority of Minneapolis residents. 65
percent of voters, to be exact. Given that it’s difficult to find
65 percent of people to agree with something as uncontroversial as whether
Britney Spears’ contributions to the gene pool violate environmental
protection statutes and constitute illegal dumping, a 65 percent mandate
seems fairly miraculous – and all the more unassailable for its unique
nature in today’s partisan atmosphere. So why is Andy Cilek and his
Minnesota Voters Alliance suing the city to prevent the new system from
starting? Especially when Minneapolis residents seem fairly convinced
the new system will help third party candidates, increase election turnouts,
and generally make the world a better place, complete with smiling,
magical, winged unicorns cavorting in the streets with adorably fuzzy
animals and martini making robots in every household.
To answer the question of why
a "non-partisan" killjoy is looking to piss all over a rare bipartisan
voter mandate that somehow didn’t bring the Earth’s rotation to
a world-ending halt, we need to start off by defining instant runoff
voting. Keep in mind however, that there is no hope of understanding
a system obviously designed by the Elder Gods – a system created with
impossible angles never meant to be understood by the base animal that
is man. In fact, the poor unenlightened masses Mr. Cilek and his ilk
are so desperately trying to protect were clearly hopped up on special K and were offered special service
packages in return
for their vote when they stopped off at polling places last year. That’s
the only explanation for the measure’s passage. But despite this fundamentally
unknowable nature of this concept, the effort must be made.
Instant runoff voting, at its
most base level, involves ranking candidates on a ballot in order of
preference so that, in the event no one receives a clear majority, the
candidate receiving the fewest "number one" votes is dropped from
the ballot and everyone who gave those "number one" votes has their
"number two" votes applied – and on down the line until someone
receives a majority of the votes. Fairly simple and straightforward,
no? So why does Mr. Cilek think Minneapolis residents are too addlepated,
inbred, and generally too fucking dumb to understand the process?
In fact, to help illustrate
just how close the average Minneapolis resident’s mental capacity
is to that of Jessica Simpson, the Minnesota Voters Alliance engaged
in a highly scientific survey to demonstrate that Minneapolis voters
didn’t even understand what they were voting for last year and just
filled in the pretty circle on the ballot. Mr. Cilek’s flunkies talked
to "about 300 people" and found less than three voters who could
explain the instant runoff system. Of course, it’s entirely possibly
the survey was taken at a Sigma Chi fraternity party on the U campus
(keg stands are really an underutilized opportunity to take the pulse
of the community), or while canvassing the city’s finer gentlemen’s
clubs (I’ve heard the dancers at Sinners are particularly well informed, though
the ones at Schiek’s have fascinating opinions on farm subsidies)
– but we may never know, since there’s no published methodology,
or even official results. We’re just expected to take the Alliance’s
word for it – non-partisan political organizations being so credible
these days. Plus, to put it bluntly – I have no damn clue exactly
how my TV works, but I manage to tune in to Robot Chicken just fine. And I’ve got news for
you…Seth Green is a
fucked up little man.
Of course, the stultifying
idiocy endemic to Minneapolis isn’t the only reason the Alliance opposes
instant runoff voting. It’s unconstitutional and disenfranchises voters!
I’m not a constitutional scholar, or even a Talmudic one, but I can’t
really see how a system used by all sorts of countries that have managed
to figure out the whole affordable health care thing, and even a few
states right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. that don’t seem to
feel that it violates the whole "one person, one vote" concept.
And as for disenfranchising people? I, and most other political analysts,
fail to see how giving people the opportunity to vote for the candidate
that best matches their ideology, be it Republican, Democrat, or cannibalistic
anarcho-syndicalist, without feeling as if they’ll be wasting their
vote. So Mr. Cilek response is to use his angry monkey style– that is, throwing a whole bunch
of shit against the wall in the hopes that some of it sticks. This is
not to be confused with tiger style, crane style, or the ever popular doggy style.
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