Instant runoff a good form of democratic growth

Why did the eighth-graders eat soggy asparagus at the class party? Simple: seven kids voted for vanilla ice cream, eight kids voted for chocolate ice cream, and nine (admittedly whacko) kids voted for the mushy green stuff. This is simple: Some form of ice cream best represents the will of the class.

Instant-runoff voting would have given power to ice cream, but the class voting system forced everyone to choke down soggy asparagus. Ask any kid if that is fair.

With its Nov. 19 commentary in the News Tribune, “Instant runoff election ill-advised, misguided,” the Minnesota Voters Alliance would seem to want to give the minority of soggy-asparagus lovers the power to force their extremist views on the majority of the people. The alliance wants you to hear the words “complex” and “confusing” so you quit thinking. Then you may not notice that its reliance on an impressive-sounding state Supreme Court case from 1915 was about an entirely different system of voting, not instant runoff voting. You also may not notice that the alliance claims credibility by citing our Founding Fathers, as if the founders’ concept of democracy was the perfect answer. Because the founders allowed voting only by white, male, U.S. citizens who owned land, one wonders if the Minnesota Voters Alliance also would bring back slavery and deny women the right to vote.

Fortunately, our founders were incredibly wise. Even if their ideas of democracy were in the infancy stage, they were smart enough to give us a system capable of changing and growing as the nation’s wisdom changes and grows. To quote the Declaration of Independence, the founders did not give us “the” perfect union, but a “more” perfect union. Instant runoff voting may not be “the” perfect answer, but it is certainly a “more” perfect one.

To heck with soggy asparagus.

Steve Elfelt

Bozeman, Mont.

The writer is a native of Anoka, Minn.