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

Sun Nov 13 09:46:23 PST 2011

In all states, always, partisan primaries always have lower turnouts than general elections for important office like President, Congress, and Governor.

But most of the discussion on this thread has concerned municipal elections, especially San Francisco.  San Francisco virtually always had a higher turnout in the first round in November, than in the second round in December.

I think that when Los Angeles has its first round for city office in April, and then a run-off for the offices for which no one got 50% in the first round in June, the April elections generally have a higher turnout than the June one.  This generalization is certainly more true in the elections in the odd year before the presidential election, when city council is up but Mayor isn't up.

If a municipality has its first round on the same ballot as a statewide partisan primary, and its second round on the same ballot as a statewide general election, obviously the turnout in the election in November will be higher.  The city turnout is a result of what is going on with the statewide state election.  I think San Jose follows that pattern; at least it did in the past.

So, it all depends on the circumstances.

Richard Winger

415-922-9779

PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

--- On Sun, 11/13/11, Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:

From: Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [EL] SF excludes 28% of participating voters from runoff
To: "'Gaddie, Ronald K.'" <rkgaddie at ou.edu>, "'David A. Holtzman'" <David at HoltzmanLaw.com>, law-election at uci.edu
Date: Sunday, November 13, 2011, 9:06 AM

What is your source on the 30% number? In my experience the November runoff elections in California always have a significantly higher turnout than the June (or March) primary. Same is true in L.A. mayoral races and frequently in city council races – the runoff generates a higher turnout than the primary. Apparently, there are numbers of voters who look at the primary as not being the real election. They wait until the field is narrowed so they can vote in the main event. Larry  From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Gaddie, Ronald K.
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 6:07 AM
To: David A. Holtzman; law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] SF excludes 28% of participating voters from runoff  Exhausted doesn't mean they were excluded; it means that they had no preference for any of the remaining candidates in the sort.  By not ranking the remaining choices, they threw a 'none of the above,' for all intents and purposes. Indifference can be interpreted many ways, and we can't know the explanation for the indifference.

What's fun about this is, on average, about 30% of voters don't make it back for a conventional runoff. They too are indifferent, but get the chance to vote with their feet.  Ronald Keith GaddieProfessor of Political ScienceEditor, Social Science QuarterlyThe University of Oklahoma
455 West Lindsey Street, Room 222
Norman, OK  73019-2001
Phone 405-325-4989
Fax 405-325-0718E-mail: rkgaddie at ou.edu
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/G/Ronald.K.Gaddie-1
http://socialsciencequarterly.orgFrom: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of David A. Holtzman [David at HoltzmanLaw.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2011 11:49 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] SF excludes 28% of participating voters from runoffAs I’ve written here before, if you really want an RCV/instant runoff jurisdiction go back to having elections with more than one (1) election day, there is no good reason to narrow the final field to two (2) candidates.  With the certified equipment that allows choosing and ranking up to three (3), voters can fully express their ordered preferences among up to four (4).

I think some people, especially news people, just miss the blood sport - I mean “competition” - of head-to-head contests.

  - dah
On 11/11/2011 2:32 PM, Larry Levine wrote: Yep. That would work. Until it didn't. What's wrong with a runoff betweenthe two top finishers. Let them discuss and debate the issues and let thosevoters 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 DanJohnsonSent: Friday, November 11, 2011 9:51 AMTo: Douglas JohnsonCc: law-election at uci.eduSubject: Re: [EL] SF excludes 28% of participating voters from runoff  That would suggest the proper response is to drop the limit of threerankings from the SF ballot. Then the number of exhausted ballots wouldfall.  And then again, some voters really didn't have any preference between thetwo 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 finalrunoff.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% wereover/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. But48,983 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 decisionwhenever the counting goes more than three rounds.[I should acknowledge what's surely going through Larry Levine's mind rightnow: 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 farfrom 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 HasenSent: Friday, November 11, 2011 8:52 AMTo: law-election at UCI.EDUSubject: [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 listLaw-election at department-lists.uci.eduhttp://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election  --Dan Johnson  Attorney at Law111 West Washington, Suite 1920Chicago, Illinois 60602  312.867.5377 (office)312.933.4890 (mobile)312.794.7064 (fax)_______________________________________________Law-election mailing listLaw-election at department-lists.uci.eduhttp://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election  _______________________________________________Law-election mailing
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David A. Holtzman, M.P.H., J.D.
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