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Last year, instant runoff voting was approved by an overwhelming majority of Minneapolis residents. 65 percent of voters, to be exact. Given that it's difficult to find 65 percent of people to agree with something as uncontroversial as whether Britney Spears' contributions to the gene pool violate environmental protection statutes and constitute illegal dumping, a 65 percent mandate seems fairly miraculous - and all the more unassailable for its unique nature in today's partisan atmosphere. So why is Andy Cilek and his Minnesota Voters Alliance suing the city to prevent the new system from starting? Especially when Minneapolis residents seem fairly convinced the new system will help third party candidates, increase election turnouts, and generally make the world a better place, complete with smiling, magical, winged unicorns cavorting in the streets with adorably fuzzy animals and martini making robots in every household.

To answer the question of why a "non-partisan" killjoy is looking to piss all over a rare bipartisan voter mandate that somehow didn't bring the Earth's rotation to a world-ending halt, we need to start off by defining instant runoff voting. Keep in mind however, that there is no hope of understanding a system obviously designed by the Elder Gods - a system created with impossible angles never meant to be understood by the base animal that is man. In fact, the poor unenlightened masses Mr. Cilek and his ilk are so desperately trying to protect were clearly hopped up on special K and were offered special service packages in return for their vote when they stopped off at polling places last year. That's the only explanation for the measure's passage. But despite this fundamentally unknowable nature of this concept, the effort must be made.

Instant runoff voting, at its most base level, involves ranking candidates on a ballot in order of preference so that, in the event no one receives a clear majority, the candidate receiving the fewest "number one" votes is dropped from the ballot and everyone who gave those "number one" votes has their "number two" votes applied - and on down the line until someone receives a majority of the votes. Fairly simple and straightforward, no? So why does Mr. Cilek think Minneapolis residents are too addlepated, inbred, and generally too fucking dumb to understand the process?

In fact, to help illustrate just how close the average Minneapolis resident's mental capacity is to that of Jessica Simpson, the Minnesota Voters Alliance engaged in a highly scientific survey to demonstrate that Minneapolis voters didn't even understand what they were voting for last year and just filled in the pretty circle on the ballot. Mr. Cilek's flunkies talked to "about 300 people" and found less than three voters who could explain the instant runoff system. Of course, it's entirely possibly the survey was taken at a Sigma Chi fraternity party on the U campus (keg stands are really an underutilized opportunity to take the pulse of the community), or while canvassing the city's finer gentlemen's clubs (I've heard the dancers at Sinners are particularly well informed, though the ones at Schiek's have fascinating opinions on farm subsidies) - but we may never know, since there's no published methodology, or even official results. We're just expected to take the Alliance's word for it - non-partisan political organizations being so credible these days. Plus, to put it bluntly - I have no damn clue exactly how my TV works, but I manage to tune in to Robot Chicken just fine. And I've got news for you...Seth Green is a fucked up little man.

Of course, the stultifying idiocy endemic to Minneapolis isn't the only reason the Alliance opposes instant runoff voting. It's unconstitutional and disenfranchises voters! I'm not a constitutional scholar, or even a Talmudic one, but I can't really see how a system used by all sorts of countries that have managed to figure out the whole affordable health care thing, and even a few states right here in the good ol' U.S. of A. that don't seem to feel that it violates the whole "one person, one vote" concept. And as for disenfranchising people? I, and most other political analysts, fail to see how giving people the opportunity to vote for the candidate that best matches their ideology, be it Republican, Democrat, or cannibalistic anarcho-syndicalist, without feeling as if they'll be wasting their vote. So Mr. Cilek response is to use his angry monkey style- that is, throwing a whole bunch of shit against the wall in the hopes that some of it sticks. This is not to be confused with tiger style, crane style, or the ever popular doggy style.