On December 8, two Minnesota state legislators said they will introduce a bill to provide for run-offs in statewide general elections, when the margin between the two candidates is less than one-half of 1%. See this story. The legislators did not mention using Instant-Runoff. The article points out that a run-off would cost several million dollars for election administrators.

The proposal is intrinsically unwise. Its authors seem not to have considered the point that an election might end up with a very narrow margin approximating one-half of 1%. In that case, a recount would be needed to see if the person who got the most votes really had a few votes more than that one-half of 1% margin, or a few votes under it. Furthermore, there is also the possibility that a run-off could also end up being ultra-close.