[EL] SF excludes 28% of participating voters from runoff
Rob Richie
rr at fairvote.org
Fri Nov 11 12:23:37 PST 2011
Let me start by agreeing with Douglas that no system is perfect --
absolutely true. It may seems like I take that view when in a defensive
mode to what I think are sometimes over-the-top attacks on RV, but I
absolutely recognize tradeoffs. (Among those is the fundamental one that,
for legislative elections, we would be far better to use alternatives to
winner-take-all. Just modestly opening legislative elections to three or
five-seat super-districts with a fair/proportional voting system would have
incredible impact on voter choice and representation - far more, say, than
Rick Pildes' reform agenda laid out in the NYTimes this week.)
I also agree with Dan about the improvement of of allowing more rankings.
In San Francisco, more than half of the ballots that didn't count in the
final round there were cast by voters who had ranked three defeated
candidates. I suspect going to more rankings would have cut the number of
exhausted ballots by a third or so, perhaps even half. The 9th circuit
ruling in the Dudum case slammed shut any legal attack on limits to three
rankings, but there is a good political reason to allow more rankings,
especially for this kind of race where people had informed opinions about a
lot of candidates.
RCV also could be done with a better ballot design, which I believe is the
root of at least some of the discontent in San Francisco. Candidates' names
are listed three times now,, and a certain number of people are more
inclined to rank the same person three times with that format. The Portland
ballot is a much cleaner ballot, and one that passed in flying colors this
week, especially when you consider that the city spent __no__ money on
voter education and told pollworkers only to answer questions by reading
back the instructions on the ballot. (Note that Portland's ballot is based
on a 15-year-old ballot design from Cambridge, MA, -- one that our
generally inept voting equipment companies, first and foremost ES&S, have
failed to make readily available, but which should be part of the next
Dominion system currently in certification).
As to San Francisco, I don't think anyone can credibly argue that if the
voters had come to the polls, looked at their ballot and, surprisingly,
only seen the winner in each race matched up against their top opponent,
that the winner would not have been the candidate to win -- e.g, the
"right" person won, based on what voters knew about the candidates as they
stood and stared at their ballot. That was absolutely the case with the
Quan-Perata race in Oakland in 2010 too -- to be sure, a literal runoff
with a different campaign might have changed what voters decided to do,
but, as it was, RCV delivered the "right" outcome. I would say that every
single RCV election in San Francisco -- up to 18 now have required multiple
rounds -- has gone to that "right" candidate.
So if Lee had faced only his strongest opponent this week, he would have
won with more votes and a majority, but regardless, he was going to be the
next mayor of San Francisco. An incumbent running with his kind of high
approval ratings is going to win every time.
Note further that mayoral runoffs are the only ones that get higher
turnout. For instance, in 2000-2003, there were 14 runoffs in San
Francisco. The two elections tied to the 2003 mayoral runoff had higher
turnout, but all 12 others had much lower turnout -- 80% as high in two
cases and about 60% as high in the remaining ten, with eight runoff winners
taking office after earning fewer votes in the runoff han the leader had
earned in November.
This year also was a great example of another downside of runoffs: who gets
in. In the sheriff's race, the first choice outcome had the winner
(Mirkarimi) in first, a candidate named Cunnie in second, and two Asian
American candidates in third and fourth. In a runoff, both Asian American
candidates are out. But with RCV, the stronger Asian candidate leapfrogged
into second, and came reasonably close to winning with RCV. As California
goes to Top Two next year for all state and congressional offices, it's
going to have a _lot__ of such odd outcomes, I believe. Indeed, two special
elections this year arguably had "wrong" candidates get to the runoff, and
lead to easy wins by candidates in the runoff who might well have lost if a
stronger candidate had advanced. (Assembly District 4 and Congressional
District 36).
RCV had a good week. The reactions to it, including from the often-cautious
election officials, was very positive in St. Paul (MN), Portland (ME) and
Telluride (CO). See below for our short Election 2011 summary below,
including links to some good background. Here's a link to round-by-round
visuals on the Portland and San Francisco mayoral outcomes.
http://www.fairvote.org/rcv-election-results-portland-and-san-francisco
- Rob Richie
##############
http://www.fairvote.org/elections-2011-ranked-choice-voting-more
Elections 2011: Ranked Choice Voting &
More<http://www.fairvote.org/elections-2011-ranked-choice-voting-more>
// November 11, 2011
Many Americans had a chance to vote in state and local elections on
November 8. FairVote was particularly focused on the first-ever use of
ranked choice voting (RCV) in Maine's biggest city of Portland, along with
RCV elections in St Paul (MN), San Francisco (CA), Cambridge (MA) Telluride
(CO) and Takoma Park (MD). The news from these elections was extremely
promising for reform advocates. There were high rates of voter
effectiveness and campaigns that accommodated more than two choices. The
news from these elections was extremely promising for reform advocates.
Voters and election officials handled the system well and more than two
candidates were able to run without "spoilers".
On another note, we are concerned about continuing declines of voter
turnout in many elections and low numbers of competitive elections. We see
winner-take-all elections increasingly locking voters into one-party boxes.
Only fair voting methods of proportional voting will provide meaningful
choices and fair representation.
- TV News: Portland Declares Ranked Choice Voting a
Success<http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article/179034/2/Portland-declares-ranked-choice-voting-a-success>
- FairVote's Dorothy Scheeline in Bangor
paper<http://sethkoenig.bangordailynews.com/2011/11/09/politics/ranked-choice-voting-advocate-says-in-ireland-they-count-millions-of-ballots-by-hand/>
and
on her travel page <http://dorothydoesdemocracy.tumblr.com/>
- FairVote Stats on San Francisco: San Francisco Voters Effectively Used
Ranked Choice
Voting<http://www.fairvote.org/san-francisco-voters-effectively-used-ranked-choice-voting>
- Visuals for RCV Counts: Round-by-Round
Breakdown<http://www.fairvote.org/rcv-election-results-portland-and-san-francisco>
- FairVote Minnesota on St. Paul: Ranked Choice Voting a
Winner<http://fairvotemn.org/node/2111>
- Telluride mayoral election: RCV
works<http://www.telluridenews.com/articles/2011/11/11/news/doc4ebc87c067cde525913543.txt>
- Elise Helgesen on Choice Voting Elections in
Cambridge<http://www.fairvote.org/cambridge-massachusetts-election-results-november-201/>
- Christina Grier on Voter Turnout in
2011<http://www.fairvote.org/the-ongoing-problem-of-low-voter-turnout-kentucky-mississippi-new-jersey-and-virginia/>
- Rob Richie and Jamie Raskiin on Fair Voting Plan for
Maryland<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-voting-districts-20111107,0,3418353.story>
- Virginia State Legislative Elections: Update to Dubious
Democracy<http://www.fairvote.org/virginia-profile-2/>
On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Dan Johnson <
dan.johnsonweinberger at gmail.com> wrote:
> That would suggest the proper response is to drop the limit of three
> rankings from the SF ballot. Then the number of exhausted ballots
> would fall.
>
> And then again, some voters really didn't have any preference between
> the two of them and prefer to exhaust their ballot.
>
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 11:46 AM, Douglas Johnson
> <djohnson at ndcresearch.com> wrote:
> > A different view on whether the of ranked-choice voting in San Francisco
> was
> > "effective":
> >
> >
> >
> > According to the November 10 numbers from the Department of Elections,
> the
> > final round tally in the San Francisco Mayoral election was 79,147 votes
> for
> > Ed Lee, 51,788 for John Avalos, and 48,983 "exhausted" ballots.
> "Exhausted"
> > means the ballot did not contain a vote for either Lee or Avalos, thus
> the
> > voter was excluded from sharing his/her preference in the final runoff.
> >
> >
> >
> > Percentage-wise, Ed Lee won the vote of 43.4% of voters participating in
> the
> > Mayoral election. John Avalos received the final vote of 28.4% of voters
> > participating in the election. And 28.2% of voters casting ballots in the
> > Mayoral primary were blocked from expressing their preference in the
> final
> > runoff (26.9% were exhausted and 1.3% were over/under votes).
> >
> >
> >
> > In fact, less than half of those not voting for Lee or Avalos in the
> first
> > round listed either of them as their #2 or #3 choices. In the first
> round,
> > 89,681 voters cast ballots for Lee and Avalos, while 90,431 voters
> preferred
> > other candidates as their first choice. As those other candidates were
> > eliminated, 41,254 additional votes were added to Lee and/or Avalos. But
> > 48,983 ballots were "exhausted" and dropped from the counts.
> >
> >
> >
> > By a 48,983 to 41,254 margin, San Francisco's ranked-choice runoff system
> > excluded the views of more participating voters than it added.
> >
> >
> >
> > No system is perfect: without any runoff, Lee would have won 31% to 19%,
> > with 50% of the voters participating not casting a vote for either of the
> > top two. With a traditional runoff, the lower turnout that sometimes
> occurs
> > would also mean some of the primary voters would not cast ballots in the
> > runoff, though I would argue that is different because that would be by
> > their choice, not by the design of the election system (and note that in
> > some local CA elections, runoff turnout is higher than primary turnout).
> In
> > SF, it is the election system that dictates the exclusion of some voters
> > from the final decision whenever the counting goes more than three
> rounds.
> > [I should acknowledge what's surely going through Larry Levine's mind
> right
> > now: the election system in place influences campaign decisions, so this
> > paragraph's comparisons to alternative systems are imperfect because
> > candidates made decisions knowing they were in a RCV system.]
> >
> >
> >
> > Amidst the cheerleading for ranked-choice voting, I believe it is
> important
> > to remember that the RCV system has substantial drawbacks too. I welcome
> the
> > discussion of whether the drawbacks of RCV are less than the drawbacks of
> > traditional no-runoff or later-runoff elections, but I would encourage
> all
> > debaters to acknowledge that RCV is also far from perfect.
> >
> >
> >
> > - Doug
> >
> >
> >
> > Douglas Johnson
> >
> > Fellow
> >
> > Rose Institute of State and Local Government
> >
> > m 310-200-2058
> >
> > o 909-621-8159
> >
> > douglas.johnson at cmc.edu
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> > [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick
> > Hasen
> > Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 8:52 AM
> > To: law-election at UCI.EDU
> > Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/11/11
> >
> > “San Francisco Voters Effectively Used Rank Choice Voting”
> >
> > Posted on November 11, 2011 9:33 am by Rick Hasen
> >
> > FairVote has issued this press release.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Law-election mailing list
> > Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> > http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Dan Johnson
>
> Attorney at Law
> 111 West Washington, Suite 1920
> Chicago, Illinois 60602
>
> 312.867.5377 (office)
> 312.933.4890 (mobile)
> 312.794.7064 (fax)
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
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>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
Rob Richie
Executive Director
FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
www.fairvote.org <http://www.fairvote.org> rr at fairvote.org
(301) 270-4616
Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see
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