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MINNEAPOLIS—On Nov. 3, voters in this
city, for the first time, used ranked-choice voting to elect local
officials. Ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting,
allowed voters to rank up to three candidates for each office.
This
wasn’t the only thing new on the Minneapolis ballot, however; Socialist
Action fielded its first candidate for Minneapolis City Council. I
proudly ran as Socialist Action’s candidate in Ward 12.
The
campaign’s primary demands were: Stop Foreclosures, End Police
Brutality, Expand Public Transportation, and Create Green Jobs by
moving to 100% Renewable Energy.
Like
the rest of the country, Minneapolis is continuing to suffer
from the foreclosure crisis. The incumbent Democratic Party council
member for Ward 12 even voted against a resolution calling for a
voluntary suspension of foreclosures. The incumbent council member also
voted for reappointment of Police Chief Tim Dolan. This was after Dolan
had awarded the Medal of Valor to a cop for killing a young, unarmed Hmong man, Fong Lee, while he was running away from
police.
The
environment is also an important issue to people in Minneapolis, where a significant
portion of electricity is produced by a garbage burner. The burner
takes in garbage that could be composted or recycled while putting out
emissions that create health hazards, in addition to greenhouse gases.
Members
of Socialist Action and campaign supporters received a lot of positive
responses while door knocking to spread the message about the
candidacy. I was also invited to participate in a candidate forum
sponsored by a neighborhood association. The major newspapers ignored
the entire election for the most part, but our campaign was highlighted
in an article by the MinnesotaIndependent.
Unfortunately,
ranked-choice voting doesn’t seem to have had much impact in this
election. Every incumbent who ran for reelection won, and every
candidate with Democratic Party endorsement won. Voter turnout was only
20%, and the mayor was reelected with fewer votes than any Minneapolis mayor since 1910.
While
reforms like instant run-off voting and proportional representation may
create an opening for socialists and other left candidates to intervene
in elections, Socialist Action has argued that democracy within
capitalism remains extremely limited. The ruling class simply would
never allow its own elections to be used to end its rule.
I
ended up with 130 first-choice votes (2.76%), 269 2nd-choice votes
(10.70%), and 356 3rd-choice votes (25.67%). A total of 755 people, or
16% of the people who voted, ranked me somewhere in their three choices.
This
is an indication that many are open to the idea of socialism, and it
demonstrates how socialists can effectively use elections as a platform
to expose the failures of capitalism.
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