To the editor:

Early voting is now open for Bloomington’s first municipal election under ranked-choice voting.

This year, for the first time, you will have the opportunity to rank all the candidates in order of your true preference, from best to worst, without having to worry about the “electability” of the candidate who you would really like to see win.

For my part, I will be casting my first choice votes for Nathan Coulter in the at-large Bloomington City Council race and Lona Dalessandro for the District 3 City Council seat that I used to hold. Since you will be able to rank all the candidates in each race, there will be no “exhausted ballots” in this election, and all of the winners will truly have the support of the majority of the voters in each race. If you’re not yet familiar with ranked-choice voting, visit the city’s elections webpage to learn how it works.

With this election, Bloomington will be helping to prove that ranked-choice voting is a practical and effective way to conduct elections in suburban cities, paving the way for the use of ranked-choice voting in school board elections, where it would be really helpful this year, and in legislative races and statewide elections under legislation which I have sponsored.

Steve Elkins

Bloomington

Elkins is the House District 49B representative, covering precincts in Bloomington and Edina.