Electoral reform in Minnesota
Encyclopedia
Electoral reform in
Electoral reform
Electoral reform is change in electoral systems to improve how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of:...

 Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

refers to efforts to change the voting and election laws in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Alternate voting systems

In 2006, voters in Minneapolis approved a switch to instant runoff voting by a 65% to 35% margin. The measure calls for IRV to be used in elections for Mayor, City Council, and members of the Park and Recreation Board, Library Board, and Board of Estimate and Taxation. It also rolls the party primary and general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

 into one election.

Expansion of the electorate

Minnesota's felony disenfranchisement
Felony disenfranchisement
Felony disenfranchisement is the term used to describe the practice of prohibiting people from voting based on the fact that they have been convicted of a felony or other criminal offence...

 laws call for voting rights to be restored upon completion of sentence, including prison, parole, and probation. Minnesota allows absentee ballot
Absentee ballot
An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station. Numerous methods have been devised to facilitate this...

s for citizens who are away from home, ill or disabled, serving as an election judge in another precinct, or unable to go to the polling place due to a religious observance or belief.

Allocation of electoral votes

Bills were introduced in 2009 in the Minnesota Legislature
Minnesota Legislature
The Minnesota Legislature is the legislative branch of government in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is a bicameral legislature located at the Minnesota Capitol in Saint Paul and it consists of two houses: the lower Minnesota House of Representatives and the Minnesota Senate...

 to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among U.S. states designed to replace current state rules governing the electoral college system of presidential elections with rules guaranteeing election of the national popular vote winner...

 and award Minnesota's 10 electoral votes to the ticket winning the nationwide popular vote. However, the bill died in the House
Minnesota House of Representatives
The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower house in the Minnesota State Legislature. There are 134 members elected to two-year terms, twice the number of members in the Minnesota Senate. Each senate district is divided in half and given the suffix A or B...

committee.

Ballot access

Major party candidates are nominated by the state primary process. Independent and minor political party candidates are nominated by a petition process; two-thousand signatures for a statewide election, or five hundred for a state legislative election. Candidates have a two week period to collect nominating petition signatures. Independent candidates may select a brief political party designation in lieu of independent. Reformers would like to see the ballot access laws loosened.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK