Minneapolis voters spoke loudly last week when, by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, they chose a new kind of balloting for most city elections -- instant-runoff voting...

But if all goes through, the 2009 election for mayor and City Council will be like nothing Minneapolis voters have seen.

Instead of two elections for those offices -- a primary and a general contest -- there will be just one. The ballot will ask voters to rank their first, second and third choices for each seat, provided there are that many candidates...

Steven Hill, political reform director for the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington and California, believes that the process will allow residents to select governing bodies that actually "mirror" them in terms of race, gender and background.

This is called proportional representation, and supporters also believe that it gives voters more choice and brings higher voter turnout, doing away with a winner-take-all outcome.

Hill, who played a key role in San Francisco's instant-runoff campaign in 2002, said that city had its third election with the system last week and that no problems were reported. In exit polls, 87 percent of voters said they understood the process, he said....