It's a City election year in Minneapolis! The Mayor, all City Council Members, and Park Board Commissioners are up for election. These positions play a critical role in biking and walking in Minneapolis and being involved is a key role you can play to improve our city. You can read candidate questionnaires on biking and walking issues here.

Election Day 2017 is Tuesday, November 7.

Minneapolis uses ranked-choice voting (details on how that works here).

There are no primaries in Minneapolis. Who will be on the ballot in November is determined in large part by the endorsing processes for individual political parties. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) and Green Party have active endorsing processes, which we try to summarize below. The Republican Party has not yet announced a process for Minneapolis endorsements and we are not yet aware of process for endorsements from any other parties. At least one candidate is running as a Socialist Alternative.

DFL Endorsement Process
The Minneapolis DFL has announced the following process for endorsing candidates for City races in 2017.

1. April 4 - Precinct Caucuses - 7pm start; 6:30pm registration. Find your location & register here. At Precinct Caucuses, people are selected to be delegates to the Ward Convention (where City Council endorsements and City delegates are determined). In most caucuses, anyone who wants to be a Ward delegate can be one (there are a limited number of slots, but there are often not enough interested people to fill them all). To participate, you must be eligible to vote in the November general election and live in the precinct. You also must generally agree with the principles of the political party hosting the caucus. A caucus is normally about an hour long. More information on caucuses is available here.
   
   
2. Ward Conventions in late April or early May (see date for your Ward here)- At the Ward Convention, delegates will vote to endorse a City Council candidate for their Ward. People are also selected to be delegates to the City Convention (for Mayoral and Park Board endorsements). Ward Conventions are on a Saturday. The length of time for the Ward Conventions varies depending on how competitive the endorsement is, but plan on at least a couple hours and potentially longer.
   
   
3. July 9 - City Convention - Delegates elected at Ward Conventions attend to vote to endorse a candidate for Mayor, candidates for Park Board, and candidates for Board of Estimate and Taxation. The City Convention starts at 10am and usually lasts for a number of hours, depending on how competitive endorsements are.

Green Party Endorsement Process
The Minnesota Green Party did an initial endorsing convention in February for some Minneapolis races. The Green Party is hosting a second endorsing convention Saturday, March 25 at noon for several seats. Details on that convention are here.

Note: The Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition is a 501(c)3 non-profit. We are non-partisan and do not endorse candidates. We encourage people to get involved in the party of their choice and support the candidates of their choice.