LETTER: Ranked-choice voting will be a question on Hopkins ballots in the fall

Community members sign the RCV Petition

On Thursday, June 18, RCV for Hopkins submitted nearly 1,000 signatures to the Hopkins city clerk to place a question to the ballot in November to allow voters to use ranked-choice voting (RCV) in city elections.

On July 6, we learned that we met the signature requirement and RCV will be on the November ballot. We want to thank all of the volunteers who helped collect the signatures and to all the voters who signed the petition.

Our campaign launched in late March, and in just a few months we have collected more than twice the number of signatures required to qualify for the ballot. That strong response reflects growing community interest in giving voters more voice and more choice in local elections.

RCV is simple and fair. Voters rank candidates by preference — first, second and third choice. If your first-choice candidate cannot win, your vote can count toward your next preferred candidate instead. This helps ensure that winning candidates have broad support and better reflect the will of the community.

While Hopkins elections have often been collegial, they are becoming more competitive. RCV ensures that winning candidates have broad support across the community, not just the largest share of a divided vote. Several neighboring cities, including St. Louis Park, Bloomington and Minnetonka already use RCV successfully. Their experiences have shown that turnout is higher under RCV and voters can rank their true favorite candidate without worrying about wasting their vote. Ranked-choice voting is a common sense change that will strengthen local representation and better reflect the values and wishes of Hopkins voters. We encourage residents to learn more about the ballot question at rcvforhopkins.org and support RCV in November.

Gary DeVaan

Hopkins