[EL] RCV in San Francisco

[Kogan, Vladimir]

Sure, but this is different from the claim that the winner has a majority of the votes. And much depends on why people don’t rank the two final contenders. If they are indifferent, we shouldn’t be too worried about. But if those with exhausted ballots have a preference between the two (not expressed on the ranked ballots, for whatever reason), then we can’t conclude that the candidate that wins is “preferred by the most voters.”

[The Ohio State University]
Vladimir Kogan, Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
2004 Derby Hall | 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1373
510/415-4074 Mobile
614/292-9498 Office
614/292-1146 Fax
http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/
kogan.18 at osu.edu<mailto:kogan.18 at osu.edu>


From: Thomas J. Cares [mailto:Tom at tomcares.com]
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2018 6:39 PM
To: Kogan, Vladimir
Cc: Election Law Listserv
Subject: Re: [EL] RCV in San Francisco

Think of it as simulated runoffs. If you don’t rank one of the 2 final contenders to-be, you’ve sat out the potential runoff between them, albeit being as convenient as possible for you.

No one will take into account the number of primary voters, who abstained from the general, when they report Newsom’s percentage of votes in November.

-Tom Cares




On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 2:40 PM Kogan, Vladimir <kogan.18 at osu.edu<mailto:kogan.18 at osu.edu>> wrote:
Sorry to sound like a broken record, but the highlighted section below is clearly incorrect:

“SF Elections are Working — and Getting Even Better”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99861>
Posted on June 28, 2018 3:53 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99861> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Oped<http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-elections-working-getting-even-better/> from By SF election commissioners Charlotte Hill<http://www.sfexaminer.com/author/charlotte-hill/>, Christopher Jerdonek<http://www.sfexaminer.com/author/christopher-jerdonek/> and Viva Mo<http://www.sfexaminer.com/author/viva-mogi/>gi:

The current RCV system also facilitated higher voter participation than the previous December runoff system, which San Francisco used until 2004. Under that system, the first election occurred in November, followed by a second race in December if no candidate won an initial majority. Voter turnout often plummeted in the December runoff, on average by 31 percent. In the 2001 runoff for city attorney, less than 17% of registered voters participated. In the 1995 mayoral election, the number of voters declined by nearly 10 percentage points from November to December.

Some have asked why San Francisco does not use the “plurality” voting method, in which the highest vote-getter wins. Plurality voting is used to elect many governors, senators, and the president. But if plurality had been used in our mayoral election, the winner would have been elected with less than 37% of the vote, with more than 60% of voters casting a ballot for another candidate. The goal of any runoff system is to ensure that the winner has a majority (50% + 1) of the vote and is the candidate preferred by the most voters. San Francisco’s “instant runoff” elections fulfill both goals, but without the expense—both for taxpayers and candidates—of a separate runoff election. San Francisco saves approximately $3.5 million by not holding a second citywide election.
Due to high rates of ballot exhaustion<http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/files/2014/12/ElectoralStudies-2fupfhd.pdf>, the winner often does not get “a majority (50%+1) of the vote and is the candidate preferred by the most voters.” The most recent mayoral election is Exhibit 1: London Breed won with 45.6 of the vote.

Vlad Kogan

[The Ohio State University]
Vladimir Kogan, Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
2004 Derby Hall | 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1373
510/415-4074 Mobile
614/292-9498 Office
614/292-1146 Fax
http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/
kogan.18 at osu.edu<mailto:kogan.18 at osu.edu>

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