Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) was at the State Fair this year! The DFL, Green, and Independence Party booths held IRV demonstration elections to rank favorite fair food, senatorial candidates and party issues.

The results are in!

Favorite Fair Food-on-a-Stick – DFL Party

A total of 256 fair goers voted on their favorite fair food at the DFL booth. With 36 write-in candidates alone, this proved to be a tasty but unusual runoff! Pronto Pups won the most (28%) first choice votes, with Cotton Candy coming in a distant second with 13% of the votes.

With such ample diversity of fair food, there were a large number of favorite write-ins. Those receiving 3 or fewer votes each were eliminated in batch in the first round of transfers and votes cast for those candidates were transferred to second choices among remaining candidates or exhausted if a second choice wasn't indicated.

All other candidates were eliminated one by one and votes redistributed to next place choices until one of candidates emerged with a majority of the votes (50% + 1).

Pronto Pups, the candidate leading since the first choice tally, went on to win with 53% of the votes.

Click here (set 1, set 2) to see detailed results. See ballot.

Favorite U.S. Senate Candidate - Independence Party

The Independence Party has endorsed Stephen Williams, but he did not win the contest among the 52 people who voted among the IP Primary candidates at the Fair.  Out of the seven primary candidates, Dean Barkley ranked at the top, with 46% of the votes. Stephen Williams gained 27% of first choice votes and Jack Uldrich 17%. None met the necessary 50% +1 needed to be declared winner.

The remaining candidates - Darryl Stanton, Doug Williams and write-ins David Dillon, Jesse Ventura and Tammy Lee - each received just one vote. These candidates were eliminated in batch and following the transfer of votes from each of these ballots to their second preferences among the remaining candidates, Dean Barkley emerged with 50% + 1 vote.

Click here to see detailed results. See ballot.

Favorite Pillar of the Green Party – Green Party

Environmental Wisdom, Social & Economic Justice, Grassroots Democracy and Non-Violence are the pillars of the Greens. While they are equally important in upholding the Green platform, fairgoers were asked to rank their favorite. 

Social and Economic Justice was the first choice of the 38 voters participating, but lacked a true majority. Non-Violence, the least vote getter with only 2 votes, was eliminated and both second choice votes went to Justice, increasing its lead. Grassroots Democracy was eliminated next, and in this final runoff Social and Environmental Justice was declared the winner, with 53% of the vote.

Click here to see detailed results. See ballot.

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While in these demonstrations the candidate leading after the first choices were tallied went on to win, this is not always the case. Whether by one vote or a large margin, IRV makes sure the candidate that the majority of voters prefer is elected and ensures voters can express their true preferences fully, without throwing their vote away.

That is why the state DFL, Independence and Green parties have endorsed IRV. We thank them for their support and for hosting these fun demonstration elections to share IRV at the 2008 Minnesota State Fair.

FairVote Minneosta designed the ballots and tallied the election results. 

For further information or questions, contact Dakotah Johnson at dakotah@fairvotemn.org.