The city of Minneapolis begins a series of public educational meetings on Instant Runoff Voting Monday night.

by Brandt Williams, Minnesota Public Radio

October 19, 2009

The new voting method will be in place on Nov. 3, when Minneapolis residents go to the polls to elect city officials. With Instant Runoff Voting, also known as ranked choice voting, people can make first, second and third choices for office.

The city's interim elections director, Pat O'Connor, said voters will notice a few changes to the ballot.

"The ovals will be the same, but instead of a single race in a single column, the races will go across with first choice to the left, second choice in the middle, third choice on the right," O'Connor said." And then all the candidates will be listed because we didn't have a primary."

O'Connor said the information sessions are designed to answer questions in advance.

"By the time Nov. 3 rolls around, we will have wanted every single voter in the city of Minneapolis to at least have been alerted or put on notice or be aware that balloting or voting will be a little bit different this year," O'Connor said.

O'Connor said because the ballots have to be hand counted, it will take several weeks to get final results of the election. However, he says voting machines will have preliminary results much sooner.

Tonight's sessions at are 6:30 p.m. at Waite Park Recreation Center and at Sanford Middle School. The city has scheduled a total of 14 meetings.

Click here for full list of sessions this week and next.