12.14.04
Instant Runoff Voting
A Progress Report — December 2004
In November 2004, the city of San Francisco
embarked on an experiment, electing its local officials by a form of
proportional representation known as Instant Runoff Voting or Ranked
Choice Voting. The new procedure, approved by voters in March 2002, had
taken two and a half years to implement, and observers — in San Francisco,
and also in a number of other U.S. cities — were watching eagerly to see
if it worked. By all accounts, it did. Here are two assessments: one, a
press release from the office of Board of Supervisors President Matt
Gonzalez, summarizes voters’ responses to ranked choice voting; the other,
an evaluation by Steven Hill of the Center for Voting and Democracy, looks
at how the new procedure actually worked and what its implications are for
the future.
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New exit poll study of Ranked Choice Voting
reports positive results
Large majorities prefer and understand system;
some differences by racial and ethnic groups
[Contact: David Grenell, 415-554-7633, office of Supervisor Matt
Gonzalez.]
December 13, 2004.
The results of an exit poll about voter’s attitudes regarding ranked
choice voting have been released. The poll, which was commissioned by the
City and County of San Francisco and paid for by the City and County and
SFSU College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, was prepared by the Public
Research Institute at San Francisco State University.
Among various findings, the exit poll found that:
* 87% of those San Franciscans polled understood ranked
choice voting.
* 61% preferred the new system, and only 13% said they
preferred the old runoff system (27% said it made "no difference" to them,
meaning 82% of those who had an opinion preferred RCV over the old
December runoff system)
The report concludes that “The majority of voters
appear to have made the transition to Ranked-Choice Voting with little
problem…. The overall finding on RCV is positive. Wide majorities of
voters knew about Ranked-Choice voting, understood it, and used it to rank
their preferences. Further, most prefer it, with only about one in eight
saying they prefer the former run-off system.”
Overall, 52 percent of those surveyed said they
understood ranked-choice voting “perfectly well”; 35 percent said they
understood it “fairly well,” an impressive total of 87 percent who had a
decent level of understanding. About 11 percent said they “did not
understand it entirely,” and another 3 percent said they “did not
understand it at all.” Results indicate that only 13% of Asians and 15% of
Chinese speakers reported a lack of understanding of RCV, compared to 12%
of whites and 23% of Spanish speakers. 70% of those who spoke English or
Chinese as a first language knew ahead of time they would be using RCV,
more than those whose first language was Spanish (22%). Nearly the same
percentage of Asians and whites ranked three candidates, 58% to 62%, both
higher than Hispanics (53%) and African Americans (49%). Voters with
lower levels of education and income also reported less understanding, but
even within those categories and demographics the differences were not
large.
See more details below from the Executive
Summary.
The exit-poll survey was conducted to gauge the ease
or difficulty with which voters expressed their preferences on the new
form of ballot. The survey, which was translated into several different
languages, included a sample of 2,847 voters from city supervisor
districts 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. More than 100 SFSU student volunteers
interviewed the respondents at polling places.
From the Executive Summary
* Over two-thirds (69%) of voters surveyed
knew that they would be asked to rank their choices for the Board of
Supervisors, while almost one-third (31%) were unaware prior to coming to
the polls.
Overall Understanding of RCV
* About one-half (52%) of those surveyed said
they understood RCV "perfectly well;" 35% said they understood it "fairly
well." About one-tenth (11%) said they "did not understand it entirely,"
and another 3% said they "did not understand it at all."
* African Americans (23%), Latinos (19%), and
voters of "Other" racial/ethnic groups (17%) were more likely to report a
lack of understanding than were Asian (13%) or White (12%) voters.
* Self-reported understanding was lowest among
voters with less education, lower income, African Americans, Latinos, and
voters whose first language is not English or Chinese.
* Prior knowledge appears to have lessened the
potential for language-based difficulty in using the RCV ballot.
* A majority (59%) of voters surveyed reported
ranking three candidates; 14% reported ranking two, and 23% reported
ranking only one candidate.
* Two-thirds (66%) of those who knew of RCV
prior to coming to the polls ranked three candidates versus 47% of those
who were unaware of the new development.
* Sixty-three percent of those who understood
RCV at least "fairly well" ranked three candidates, while only 36% of
those who did not understand it entirely or at all ranked three
candidates.
Opinion about RCV
* A majority of respondents (61%) preferred
the new system; 13% said they preferred the runoff system, and 27% said it
made "no difference" to them.
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Success for ranked choice voting in San Francisco…
But potential trouble on the horizon from opponents
By
Steven Hill
December 9, 2004. This past November, San
Francisco proved to be a beacon in an otherwise tumultuous election
season. In a time of polarized national politics and generally low
turnout elections, San Francisco embarked on an important innovation in
democracy that points American democracy toward the future. I am
referring, of course, to San Francisco's first-time use of ranked choice
voting to elect seven seats on the Board of Supervisors.
Are you enjoying having your November and December
back? Just think, without ranked choice voting, many of you would have
been working on campaigns all through the month of November and into
December. Others of you would be planning to trudge out to the polls next
Tuesday. I hope you are enjoying having your holiday season back. I sure
am.
Not only that, San Francisco’s first election with
ranked choice voting was a success. Consider that:
1. Quick results. The winners in all seven
races for the Board of Supervisors were known within 72 hours after the
polls closed (in three of those races the winners were known on election
night). We don’t need to wait until December to know the winners anymore.
2. Better democracy. More voters had a say in
electing their supervisor, because the election was finished in November,
when voter turnout for a presidential race was much higher than it would
have been for a low-turnout December runoff.
3. Taxpayers saved the cost of the second
election, as did candidates.
4. Boost for Dept of Elections. With one fewer
election to run, the Department of Elections’ load is now significantly
easier, allowing them to focus on running better elections.
5. Less negative campaigning. In several races
negative campaigning declined and coalition-building increased, as
candidates sought to win a second ranking from the supporters of other
candidates.
You should check out the official results that have
been posted on the Department of Elections web site at
www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/election/results.htm. For each
supervisorial district race you can click on the link and see round by
round vote totals, as one last-placed candidate after another is
eliminated and each of their supporter’s vote then counts for that voter’s
next ranking, i.e. their runoff choice. You can actually see the
coalitions forming that elected each supervisor! It is very cool; check
it out.
Check out District 1, where Jake McGoldrick won
reelection with over 14,000 votes. When he was elected in the 2000
December runoff, he had fewer than 7,500 votes, even though he had about
the same percent of the vote both years. That’s because we got the
election over in November, when more voters are at the polls. In District 2, Aaron Peskin won this year with over 16,000 votes, but in
2000 he won with only 7,200 votes. In each district, the winners had
thousands of votes more than the winners in those districts had in
2000. Because we got the election over in November!
If we had gone to a December runoff, voter turnout
would have plummeted after the presidential election. In fact, in the 2000
December runoff, following the November presidential election, turnout
dropped by 50 percent — more than half of voters! And we would have had to
endure another six weeks of the usual mano-a-mano, hack-attack campaigns.
Good riddance!
Of course, this being the first election using ranked
choice voting, there’s always room for improvement. And there is always
more educating that needs to be done, particularly to assist certain
communities who need that assistance. Soon we will have the results of
a
comprehensive study and exit poll from the Public Research Institute at
San Francisco State University that will help us pinpoint where to
improve, which communities need more assistance, and other valuable
information.
Storm Clouds on the Horizon
Unfortunately, the opponents of ranked choice voting
who failed to stop it when it was on the ballot, and were able to delay
its implementation but not halt it entirely, are still out there trying to
make trouble.
One of these opponents, David Lee from the Chinese
American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC), was quoted recently in a
Chinese-language daily newspaper, World Journal, saying that ranked choice
voting is the newest “Chinese Exclusion Act” and says repealing ranked
choice voting (and district elections too, apparently) should be the
Chinese-American community’s top civil rights agenda. Earlier in November,
Lee/CAVEC held a press conference and released the results of a bogus
opinion poll from local polling firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and
Associates that misrepresented their results to make the case that
minorities say they “hate” ranked choice voting and found it difficult to
use. The only problem is their numbers showed the exact opposite — 2.5
times as many Asians said they liked RCV as disliked it, and four times as
many Latinos. And many more said it was easy to use as difficult. But Lee
and the polling firm weren’t about to let facts get in the way of a good
whopper of a story. While the San Francisco media scratched their heads
over the perfectly obvious, they mostly reported their funny numbers and
conclusions without pointing out that they were bogus. A real failure for
the SF media, to be sure! If you wish to read my full analysis of their
exit poll, click here
www.sf-rcv.com/educavec.htm.
It's pretty clear where David Lee is going. He is
trying to build a case for patterns of racially polarized voting as he
prepares to possibly file a voting rights lawsuit, which he has publicly
threatened. Such a lawsuit is a real Hail Mary pass and has zero chance of
succeeding. But he also is trying to win in the courtroom of public
opinion, which could be the first steps towards joining with his
high-powered friends in the political consultant community and downtown
business to mount a repeal attempt.
David Lee and CAVEC have made a name for himself as a
staunch defender of political empowerment for the Asian community, and of
course I am all for that (that’s why I was one of the organizers of the
successful campaign for public financing of supervisor races, to help
underfunded candidates, many of whom are racial minorities). Yet Lee and
his organization did next to nothing to try and educate Chinese voters
about ranked choice voting. At times it truly seems that Lee has another
hidden agenda. Perhaps an article from the Bay Guardian last year reveals
more of where Lee is coming from. According to the Bay Guardian, CAVEC’s
financial benefactors are a who's who list of the same downtown interests
that have been staunch allies of the Willie Brown political machine that
had a hand in delaying implementation of RCV. A Feb. 16, 2001, article in
Asian Week noted, "Chinese Americans aren't even stakeholders in CAVEC.
Among the organization's major donors, Asian American corporate or
individual donors are scarce. The top ... donors were Chevron, Wells
Fargo, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Host Marriott, Levi Strauss,
Norcal Waste Management, State Farm and [Warren] Hellman." Hellman is a
major financier who founded a conservative group called S.F.SOS and
cochairs the Committee on Jobs, made up of the city's biggest employers
(You can read more details about this at
www.sfbg.com/37/40/news_irv.html).
I will keep you updated as we learn more of what
underhanded schemes the opponents have in mind. I am very confident that
once the results from the Public Research Institute at SFSU are released,
we will be able to point to a competent study done by a credible
organization to show that ranked choice voting in San Francisco worked for
all communities, regardless of race or ethnicity. That doesn’t mean we
don’t still have work to do to make it even better. But it was a good
first election.
Just as San Francisco has led the nation in so many
ways, from gay marriage to cutting edge computer and biotechnologies, San
Francisco now is leading the United States with modern democratic methods.
It is something for which San Franciscans can be proud, and for the rest
of the nation to consider.
