After the final absentee ballot was tallied, Bloomington announced that the ballot initiative to implement Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) for municipal elections had passed, but by a slim margin.
Going forward with Ranked Choice Voting requires a change to the Bloomington City Charter. Any Charter change must pass by 51%. Of the 49,489 votes cast on the question, 25,239 were needed to reach the 51% threshold. “Yes” votes count was 25,332. This represents a margin of 93 votes, or 0.19%.
By law, if the margin of victory is less than 0.5% of the total number of votes cast when the total number of votes cast is less than 50,000, a voter may request a recount at state expense. Such a request needs to be accompanied by a petition signed by at least 25 eligible Bloomington voters and submitted within seven (7) days following the meeting of the Hennepin County Canvassing Board.
On Monday, November 16, Randy Sutter, as the voter of record, formally requested a recount of the votes registered for Bloomington Ballot Question 3 on Ranked Choice Voting. The request was supported by a petition signed by 94 Bloomington voters, collected over five days following Election Day.