[EL] SF excludes 28% of participating voters from runoff

Sun Nov 13 09:01:39 PST 2011

Interesting concept. I'll ponder. Gut level, however, I'm uneasy with the
notion of people voting for multiple candidates. I think it has the
potential to distort the results. In the example you cite wouldn't it have
been to the advantage of both Hahn and Bowen to urge their supporters to
cast their second place vote for the Republican to ensure a weaker run off
opponent. The top two primary next June would hold out the same potential if
IRV were part of the equation. Take the Berman-Sherman situation. Wouldn't
each of them rather run against a Republican in November than have to run
against each other again. On the other hand, it seems to make more sense
than elimination of the run off.

Larry

From: Thomas J. Cares [mailto:Tom at tomcares.com] 
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 7:15 AM
To: Larry Levine
Cc: Dan Johnson; Douglas Johnson; law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] SF excludes 28% of participating voters from runoff

Larry, if that's how you feel, would you at least concede that it would be
an improvement on traditional run-offs, to use IRV to determine the top 2
candidates, and then have them go head-to-head? (Assume it'd be possible to
rank unlimited candidates like in Portland, ME)

Wouldn't it be nice to know for sure that CA-36 voters really preferred Hahn
over Bowen, and that the candidacy of Winograd and others didn't distort the
outcome (or to have gotten the more-legitimate result, if it did distort the
outcome)?

You can almost look at this algebraically.

Let a = a traditional top two run-off

Let b = using IRV (with unlimited rankings allowed) to determine the top two
candidates, and then doing a head-to-head run-off

Let c = just having one IRV election (let's just say with unlimited allowed
rankings, to try to put that issue aside)

Let d = the percentage of times 'b' would produce a different winner than
'c'

Let e = the average value of the change in outcome when 'b' would result in
a different outcome than 'c'

Let f = the burden on voters and government to carry out an additional
election

Your email advocates 'a', but clearly, isn't b>a?

Then, isn't c>b+d*e-f?

Some might take it further and let g = kemeny-young condorcet and say g>c

My view is that Condorcet gets you the least-objectionable candidate;
plurality (and top-two runoffs with lots of initial candidates, which is
fairly similar to plurality) gets you the candidate who appeals to the
largest niche, and IRV strikes the appropriate balance (I'd go so far to say
that it could be the corner-stone of really good government).

I say the right answer is C.

I think some people unjustifiably prefer 'a' over 'b' or 'c' because they're
used to campaigns that are focused on appealing to the largest niche. I
think Don Perata would fall into this category. My guess is that Perata
would have liked a traditional runoff where he would have had a large
plurality margin in the first election and then hoped that this would
depress the turnout of his opponents in the run-off, so that even while more
people voting in the first election, as the RCV election showed us, would
have preferred Quan over Perata than vice-versa, the benefit of depressed
turnout in the run-off may have enabled him to win. The only way I think you
could say a>b and a>c is if you think it's a good thing to preserve that
kind of path to victory.

Perhaps there's one more reason - to preserve a special ability for insiders
to try to determine election outcomes by deciding early on whose campaigns
should and shouldn't be embraced, hoping to manipulate a voronoi diagram of
candidates' ideological coordinates, where only certain candidates (or 1
machine-chosen candidate) are left with a chance of getting the largest
area. 

(To be fair, alternatively, one might just think that 'b' and/or 'c' are
negligible improvements that aren't worth implementing, but I think RCV
outcomes are demonstrating that that's not true, and that the improvement is
significant).

Thomas Cares

Tom at TomCares.com

On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 2:32 PM, Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net>
wrote:

Yep. That would work. Until it didn't. What's wrong with a runoff between
the two top finishers. Let them discuss and debate the issues and let those
voters who wish to participate pick the one for whom they want to vote. Oh,
yeah, that's not reform.
Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Dan
Johnson
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 9:51 AM
To: Douglas Johnson
Cc: law-election at uci.edu

Subject: Re: [EL] SF excludes 28% of participating voters from runoff

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
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Chicago, Illinois 60602

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