San Francisco ChronicleSan
Francisco Supervisor Proposes Instant Runoff
Elections; Tom Ammiano wants voters to select
their top three candidates on ballot Supervisor Tom Ammiano proposed yesterday that San Francisco scrap its system of costly and often- brutal runoff elections and replace it with instant runoffs. His idea is for voters to pick their top candidate for an office, along with their second and third choices. When all the votes are counted, the last-place candidate in the race would be dropped, if no candidate got a majority. That losing candidate's votes would then be transferred to the voters' second choice. Voters whose second choice was eliminated would have their ballots shifted to their third pick. This process would continue until one candidate got a majority, hence the term instant runoff. Currently, if no candidate wins a majority in the general election, the top two finishers advance to a runoff six weeks later. Five of the past six mayoral elections have been decided in runoff elections. Ammiano needs the support of a majority of the 11 supervisors to put his proposed City Charter amendment before voters on the March 2000 presidential primary ballot. He wants the new method of electing all citywide officials and supervisors to take effect with the November 2000 ballot, when the supervisors will be elected in districts for the first time in more than 20 years. ``This system will avoid the potential for costly runoffs, which can cost up to $1 million to administer,'' Ammiano said in proposing his system at yesterday's weekly board meeting. ``It would also discourage negative campaigning, encourage coalition- building and reduce fund-raising demands.'' If Ammiano's proposal gets on the ballot, it would not be the first time San Francisco voters have been asked to change their system of voting in local elections. In November 1996, they rejected Proposition H, a Charter amendment that called for a complicated system of preference voting in citywide supervisors elections. That measure had the support of a broad coalition that included a majority of the supervisors, the county Democratic Party and organized labor, but voters apparently found the proposed system too tangled. Ammiano's proposal is identical to one that Santa Clara County voters decided to adopt in November for their countywide elections. Opposition to the idea immediately surfaced from Adam Sparks, who worked to defeat the 1996 plan. He said the current system remains the best because it gives voters ``maximum control and maximum flexibility.'' Sparks also said voters' choices about which candidate they will back often changes before a runoff, so the second round of campaigning is valuable for voters. ``Your decision could also be determined by who your candidate is running against,'' Sparks said. ``A lot of times your choice for second could change, depending on who is in the runoff.'' Steve Hill of the Center for Voting and Democracy, which helped draft the proposal, said the instant runoff would promote civility in campaigns. ``In places that use it, candidates have to be careful what they say about their opponents because they want people to vote for them as their second choice,'' Hill said.
San Francisco
Examiner Voters would pick top 3 choices for office to scrap need for 2nd election Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano wants to abolish the traditional run-off system for local races in San Francisco and replace it with a quicker, less costly method. He wants to follow the lead of London, Ireland and a handful of other places by implementing "instant run-off voting," a vote-tabulation system that allows a winner to be picked right away if no candidate receives the majority of votes on the first go-around. Under the current system in San Francisco, a run-off between the top two vote-getters is held about a month after the general election when none of the candidates gets more than 50 percent of the vote. For example, in next month's mayor's race, it's possible that none of the candidates will receive a majority of votes, and the top two will have to duke it out in a second election in December, just as former Assembly speaker Willie Brown and then-Mayor Frank Jordan had to in 1995. Under Ammiano's proposal, the winner would be picked immediately after the election. "Run-off elections are taxing on voters in more ways than one," Ammiano said. "First, they have to vote twice in just over a month, and second, run-off elections can cost up to $1.million to administer." Additionally, he said, instant run-off voting can save the candidates money, because they'd only have one election to worry about. It also may reduce the onslaught of mud-slinging that has become the norm during one-on-one run-off races, Ammiano said. Under the proposed system, voters would list their top three candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority on the first round of votes, the last-place candidate would be eliminated. The ballots on which the eliminated candidate was listed as the No..1 choice would be recounted, but this time, the No..2 choice on those ballots would be counted as if he or she were the No..1 choice. Again, the last-place finisher would be eliminated, and so on until one person finally accumulates the majority of votes. "Candidates will have to be on their best behavior," Ammiano said. "Unlike run-off elections, when it often makes sense for a candidate to bash their opponent, candidates will be competing for second-place votes from their opponents' supporters." The system would pertain to all elected offices in San Francisco: mayor, supervisors, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney, treasurer, assessor-recorder and public defender. Ammiano's proposal, which he introduced Tuesday, still must be considered by the Board of Supervisors. If adopted, it would go on the March ballot as a charter amendment. If approved, the system would be in place for the November 2000 election. San Francisco voters in 1996 rejected a similar system proposed for electing supervisors. Voters in Santa Clara County approved a measure that allows the use of instant run-off voting for county elections. Alaska, New Mexico and Vermont are looking at adopting the system. |