MinnPost | Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010

Coleman-Franken-Barkley, Pawlenty-Hatch-Hutchinson, Pawlenty-Moe-Penny, Ventura-Coleman-Humphrey. Minnesota has become the state of three-headed elections (maybe good) with no majority winners (not so good.)

Our last governor to win a majority of electoral support was Arne Carlson in 1994. And, once again, the stage is set for Minnesota to elect a leader who will take office with less than 50 percent of the popular vote.

Our system of electing candidates no longer reflects the realities of our state. The "any winner takes all" approach is a holdover from an era in which there were almost always only two parties on the ballot; it is out of step with the growing diversity of the state.

Over the last 16 years, our state's chief executives have taken office with "mandates" of 46.7 percent, 44.4 percent and 37.0 percent of the voters' support. Given the number of candidates on the stump, the level of political rancor and the scope of the challenges awaiting the winner, there's no reason to expect that any candidate in 2010 will be able to buck this trend and break the 50 percent barrier — a prediction shared by political analysts Jeff Blodgett and Tom Horner at the Minneapolis Club's "The Year in Politics" forum we attended in December. This almost-certain minority status constitutes another burden our next governor will have to shoulder along with the other demands of his or her office.

Read full story.

John Cairns is a former executive director of the Minnesota Business Parnership and former Minneapolis City Council member who serves on the Advisory Council of FairVote Minnesota. John C. Hottinger, a former Minnesota senator and a consultant in public policy and deliberative democracy processes, serves on FairVote's board of directors.