04-25-2006 Charter Commission Regular Meeting 1
Minutes of the Hopkins Charter Commission
April 25, 2006
The Hopkins Charter Commission met on April 25. Present were Commission members
Dorothy Boen, David Day, Roger Gross, Fran Hesch, Steve Lewis, and Emily Wallace-Jackson.
The meeting was brought to order at 6:35 p.m. by the Chair of the Commission, Roger Gross.
Approval of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting
Commissioner Hesch moved and Commissioner Day seconded the motion to approve the
minutes of the March 28, 2006 meeting. The motion was approved unanimously.
Old Business
Ranked Ballot Voting
Mr. Genellie presented a draft of a proposed Charter amendment ordinance. The Commission
discussed the various sections of the proposed ordinance.
Commissioner Lewis asked whether the language would allow for a separate implementation of
ranked ballot voting for single seat elections, such as the Mayor, versus multiple seat elections,
such as the City Council.
The Commission discussed the advisability of pursuing this option. Mr. Genellie pointed out that
part of the difficulty of implementing RBV is the cost of either acquiring new voting machines or
reprogramming existing voting machines. It is possible that other jurisdictions might adopt RBV,
thus making implementation less costly. However, if the other jurisdictions adopt RBV and their
machines are only programmed for single seat elections, the City of Hopkins could still
experience significant costs in programming machines for multiple seat elections.
The Commission decided to continue to examine the possibility of separate implementation.
The Commission discussed the concept of a majority. The Commission determined the
following:
• A majority would be 50% plus 1 of the total ballots cast in an election. The majority for the
mayoral election would be the same as the majority for Council election.
• In a Council election, it is possible to have more than two candidates receive a majority of
the first or highest choice votes. This occurs because each ballot contains two first or highest
choices that are counted equally. Whenever this occurs the elected candidates will be those
receiving the highest number of votes.
• That once a candidate achieves a majority they are declared elected regardless of whether
their ultimate vote total is surpassed during subsequent counts. This possibility must exist in
order to allow for a candidate who wins a majority of the votes on the first count to be
insured of being elected.
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The Commission discussed what to do with ballots where the voter skipped a rank on the ballot.
For example they vote for two first choices and then chose a candidate for Alternate #2 but leave
Alternate #1 blank. The Commission determined that this ballot would be treated the same as a
ballot where two candidates are both listed as Alternate #1. The tabulating machine would return
the ballot giving the voter a chance to correct the vote. If a voter casts a ranked-choice ballot but
skips a rank, the voter's choices after the blank rank shall not be counted.
Finally the Commission discussed how the tabulation of votes would be reported. The
Commission determined that in addition to reporting who the winning candidates are, the number
of votes that each candidate received in every round would be reported.
The Commission decided to set the next meeting for Tuesday, June 6 at 6:30 p.m.
Adjournment
Commissioner Hesch moved and Commissioner Wallace-Jackson seconded the motion to
adjourn. The meeting adjourned by unanimous consent.