Election panel will not fight ruling
State says Shelby County can’t have instant runoff
The Shelby County Election Commission won’t appeal Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins’ opinion issued last week that said the commission can’t legally implement instant runoff voting for Memphis city elections.
The commission asked Goins for a formal opinion on instant runoff voting after he wrote a 2017 letter that said the procedure may conflict with state election laws.
Goins last week issued a memorandum opinion and declaratory order that states the election commission can’t legally implement instant runoff voting — also known as ranked-choice voting — in the city of Memphis under state law. Even if state law allowed for instant runoff voting, some of the procedures could conflict with the Memphis city charter, Goins wrote.
“My fellow commissioners and I made that decision because we felt that appealing the order would put us in the position of advocating for IRV,” Election Commission Chairman Robert Meyers said in a statement Wednesday after the commission voted 4-1 not to appeal Goins’ order.
This week, several potential candidates for the Memphis City Council candidates sent another petition for a declaratory order on the implementation of instant runoff voting in Memphis to Goins’ office.
Jennifer Racquel Collins-milinkovich, Samuel Goff, John Marek and Erika Sugarmon are planning to run in Mem-
phis districts that would use instant runoff voting if it were implemented, and “believe that as candidates with less name recognition and fewer resources than incumbents, they would benefit greatly from the instant runoff system,” the petition states.
If instant runoff voting were implemented in Memphis, it would apply to the seven single-district City Council seats.
The new petition requests a contested case hearing and another declaratory order. It asserts that Goins’ 2017 letter exceeds his authority, instant runoff voting procedures don’t violate Tennessee state law, its implementation is feasible for the October 2019 city elections and asks that his memorandum opinion issued last week be overturned.
Ranked choice voting allows voters to rank their candidates in order of preference. The candidate who pulls the majority of first preference votes wins, but if no one garners a majority, an instant runoff would be triggered.
More than 70 percent of Memphis voters cast ballots in favor of instant runoff voting a decade ago, but the practice has not been implemented. City voters affirmed their support for the ranked-choice voting method on the November ballot, but questions remained about how it would be implemented.
Memphis city elections will be held
Jamie Munks covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at jamie.munks@commercialappeal.com. Follow her on Twitter @journo_jamie_.