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No More Gerrymanders: Congressional Representation in the Seven At-Large States

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:26:05 -0800

All across the nation, lawmakers are engaged in a grand political game - decennial congressional redistricting - designed to benefit party elites rather than the people. Already, a number of states have passed controversial, opportunistic maps in which elected officials have chosen their voters before voters have chosen them. Redistricting, when combined with a winner-take-all rule in which 50% + 1 of the district vote guarantees 100% of representation, not only leaves substantial voting blocs unrepresented, but it reduces the vast majority of U.S. House elections to ceremonial, uncompetitive contests, in which voters are asked not to elect but to ratify the decisions party elites have already taken.

To address these problems, FairVote, as part of an ongoing series, has proposed state-specific "super-district" plans designed for elections with a proportional representation system, which we call "fair voting." Rather than use a winner-take-all rule, which accentuates the unfair effects of redistricting and encourages partisan games, FairVote has combined winner-take-all, gerrymandered districts to form multi-member super-districts. When using a fair voting system in these larger districts, every voter in every election will have a meaningful choice in a competitive contest and will be more likely to earn fair representation - a representative balance likely to include a winner from both major parties and occasionally a third party or independent candidate.

Winner-Take-All Plagues Seven At-Large States: However, in a handful of states, the partisan jockeying that is congressional redistricting does not occur. In each of these seven states - Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Delaware, and Vermont - just one member of Congress runs at-large across the entire state, meaning that controversies over redistricting occur only on the state legislative level. Rather than redrawing districts every ten years as the 43 other states must in order to maintain equal populations in each district, an at-large district's borders are fixed.

Though spared the controversies of congressional redistricting, winner-take-all rules still plague at-large states. By design, winner-take-all elections reduce millions of voters to irrelevancy, either because they live in a district that widely favors one party or because they vote for a candidate in a competitive constituency who falls short. Nowhere are the shortcomings of our voting system more acute than in at-large, winner-take-all races, where one individual is - rather astonishingly - responsible for representing the political and demographic diversity of an entire state. That this occurs in the U.S. House, the chamber of the national legislature that is by definition intended to reflect the complexities and vicissitudes of public opinion, is even more alarming. Americans forms of proportional representation, by contrast, would alleviate these problems.

When taken as a whole, FairVote's state-specific fair voting plans will achieve a U.S. House much more reflective of the nation's partisan and racial composition than what is possible under gerrymandered, winner-take-all contests - and, even more importantly, make every voter's participation meaningful in every election. Since these at-large states are locked in at one seat apiece, however, our construction of multi-seat super-districts is impossible under the U.S. House's current structure. For fair voting plans to be feasible in at-large states, one of two changes would need to occur: either a statutory change to federal law in order to expand the U.S. House beyond 435 seats (as was done regularly until 1910), which would give each of the at-large states at least two representatives, or a constitutional amendment allowing states to join with others to form interstate congressional districts.

Recent Winner-Take-All Elections in At-Large States: That said, it is informative to look at these states' recent congressional election results, in order to understand the degree to which winner-take-all has polluted the political waters. Racially, the at-large states are predominantly white (81.0%), with blacks (4.6%), Latinos (4.5%), and Native Americans (5.4%) all comprising roughly the same share of the combined population. Delaware is the only state with a significant black population (20.8%), while Alaska (14.4%) and South Dakota (8.5%) both contain an appreciable number of Native Americans.

With just one seat in each at-large state, racial minorities have had no chance to elect a preferred candidate who can't also draw significant support from white voters; unsurprisingly, none of the seven states have ever sent a racial minority candidate to Congress. The problem, of course, is not simply that these states lack multiple congressional districts in each of these states; rather, winner-take-all systems naturally struggle to reflect accurately the demographic composition of districts. Conversely, proportional systems lower the threshold of support necessary for like-minded voters in a minority group to help elect candidates of choice.

In terms of partisanship, all of the at-large states have partisanship index ratings that give a clear tilt toward one major party over the other. In other words, seven of seven seats are uphill battles for the other political party in House races – to the point that at least in presidential races, the contests essentially are over before they start.

Vermont and Delaware, with respective Democratic Party partisanship indexes of 64.9% and 58.9%, have backed the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992. Of the other five states - Wyoming (30.3% Democratic partisanship), Alaska (35.6%), North Dakota (42.1%), South Dakota (42.2%), and Montana (45.2%) - all except Montana have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968, and even then, the Big Sky Country gave only 37.6% to Bill Clinton in 1992, with independent Ross Perot earning 26.1% of the vote. Although the minority party has had some successes in these states' House races, all of them today are in line with their partisan leanings.

Partisanship Breakdown in the At-Large States

At-Large State	Population	Partisanship (D)	Safe Seats (D)	Leaning Seats (D)	Toss-Up	Leaning Seats (R)	Safe Seats (R)
AK	710,231	35.60%	0	0	0	0	1
MT	989,415	45.23%	0	0	0	1	0
WY	563,626	30.25%	0	0	0	0	1
SD	814,180	42.16%	0	0	0	1	0
ND	672,591	42.05%	0	0	0	1	0
DE	897,934	58.86%	1	0	0	0	0
VT	625,741	64.87%	1	0	0	0	0
Totals	5,273,718	-	2	0	0	3	2

*Partisanship percentages are based on an interpretation of vote totals in the 2008 presidential election. The seats are defined according to the following ranges: toss-up districts have a partisanship rating between 46% and 54%, leaning seats have a partisanship between 54% and 58%, and safe seats have a partisanship greater than 58%. Our projections do not take into account incumbent advantages but reflect the underlying partisanship leanings of each district.

At the congressional level, some at-large states have shown more competitiveness than their partisanship rating would suggest - likely a holdover of the more fluid political realities of the last century. For instance, Republican Mike Castle represented Delaware for nine terms until leaving the House in 2010 to run - unsuccessfully - for Vice President Joseph Biden's former U.S. Senate seat. Similarly, North Dakota and South Dakota sent Democrats to Congress before both were defeated in 2010 by Republican challengers; in the former, nine-term Democratic incumbent Earl Pomeroy fell to Rick Berg, while in the latter, four-term Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin lost to Kristi Arnold Noem.

While these results show that both Democratic and Republican voters in these states have experienced electoral success, winner-take-all rules in one-seat states still mean that, in any given congressional district, only one major party's voters receive representation - and we likely will see fewer such surprises in the years ahead unless the partisan differences between the parties again become less clear. Such unfair results are to be expected in a voting system that makes nuanced representation virtually impossible.

Most at-large states have been dominated by one political party. Wyoming, for example, has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. House since Teno Roncalio resigned in 1978, while Alaska's last Democratic U.S. House representative, Nick Begich (father of current U.S. Senator Mark Begich), died while in office in 1972. In other words, it has been over 30 years since Democrats in either of these states have sent a candidate who shares their views to the U.S. House. Meanwhile, Vermont Republicans have not elected a U.S. House Member since 1990.

The U.S. House elections of 2008 and 2010 are illustrative of the lack of representation inherent in winner-take-all. In 2008, a combined 787,916 voters (counting Democrats in AK, MT, WY, and DE and Republicans in SD and ND) were left unrepresented - a number that would have been even larger had Vermont's Peter Welch received a Republican challenger. The same story occurred two years later in 2010, when - despite partisan turnover in three of the seven seats - a combined 700,304 voters (counting Democrats in AK, MT, WY, SD, and ND and Republicans in DE and VT) were unable to send a favored candidate to the U.S. House. In spite of our basic American principles grounded in representative democracy, winner-take-all ensures that the voices of many thousands of voters are left unheard and unrecognized in the halls of Congress.

Neglected Major Party Voters in the 2008 and 2010 U.S. House Elections

At-Large State	2008 Winning Party	Number of Losing Party 2008 Voters	Losing Party % 2008 Vote	2010 Winning Party	Number of Losing Party 2010 Voters	Losing Party % 2010 Vote
AK	R	141,754	45.1%	R	77,606	30.7%
MT	R	154,713	32.4%	R	121,954	33.8%
WY	R	103,677	42.8%	R	45,768	24.5%
SD	D	122,943	32.4%	R	146,589	45.9%
ND	D	118,430	37.9%	R	106,542	45.1%
DE	R	146,399	38.0%	D	125,442	41.0%
VT	D	Unopposed	N/A	D	76,403	32.1%
Totals	-	787,916	-	-	700,304	-

*Source for 2008 data and 2010 data is the New York Times.

Conclusion

Although at-large states avoid the partisan jockeying that goes along with congressional redistricting, they still struggle under the weight of oppressive winner-take-all rules. If the winner-take-all games continue, voters are likely to become even more disenchanted with our political system. In all of the at-large states, scores of voters are left unrepresented, sometimes for decades. They are forced to participate in congressional elections that lack competition and give them a representative in the "people's house" with views they strongly oppose. It is clear that one candidate cannot possibly reflect the makeup of everyone in a district, as winner-take-all assumes. Therefore, we need a new approach that will more accurately reflect the residents of each state. This will be harder to achieve for states with one House member, but by adopting fair voting plans with multi-seat super-districts, we can begin the march toward a more representative democracy.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: A History and Analysis of Relevant Supreme Court Cases

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 08:52:37 -0700

Fuzzy Math: Wrong Way Reforms for Allocating Electoral College Votes

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:20:29 -0700

Federal Primary Runoff Elections and Voter Turnout Declines, 1994 - 2010

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:03:09 -0700

This report analyzes turnout data for the 146 primary runoff elections held between 1994 and 2010. Primary runoffs are elections between the top two vote-getters that are held after the initial primary should no candidate surpass a certain vote threshold (typically a majority) in the first round. However, these elections are plagued with declining turnout that negates the representative nature of the system. Noting the numerous factors that may impact turnout decline, this report attempts to quantify and measure these effects to promote the best possible election policy.

Redistricting Reform in the States: June 2010

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:37:35 -0800

Summary of Trends:

This report seeks to report on redistricting bills introduced in state legislatures this term. (Please alert us at rr@fairvote.org if you know of an omission.)

This review of redistricting reform in the states in 2009-2010 presents a mix of optimism and frustration for supporters of redistricting in the public interest. Of the many proposals addressed by the fifty state legislatures in 2009-2010, very few passed. Most of the proposals have died or are stuck in committee. Given the fact that the laws in many states prohibit redistricting more than once a decade, few states are likely to engage in redistricting with any new, less partisan procedures before 2021 at the earliest.

For reformers, the picture is not completely bleak. The fact that most state legislatures had members who felt compelled to introduce legislation, most of which was for actual reform of the process, could very well mean that the public’s tolerance for gerrymandering and politicians selecting their constituents is lessening. When state legislators do introduce legislation to undo reform, as in California, there was significant pushback. We may not see reform across the country for at least another decade, but the problem of politically-driven redistricting at the expense of the public interest is gaining awareness from average voters. This awareness may turn to action, making it all the more important to evaluate different approaches to make sure they achieve their objectives.

State Reform in the Spotlight in November 2010:

The two major redistricting issues to watch in November 2010 are competing ballot measures expected in California and Florida. In both states, voters are faced with two competing ballot measures: one which advances redistricting reform and one which protects the status quo and the interests of legislators. There is a lot of money and a lot of activism going into both sides and the outcomes of these twin elections, especially given the importance of California and Florida in national politics, will go far in shaping the tone of the debate for years to come. These two state races also will go far in gauging grassroots involvement in the issue and act as a barometer for the engagement of average voters in redistricting reform.

Download the Full 50-State Analysis above.

The Constitutional Right to Vote Blog: Rock the Blog!

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 11:16:26 -0700

The last Constitutional amendment (aside from the 27th amendment which started its ratification process in the late 1700s) was the 26th amendment. Ratified in 1971, it states that “The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.” While the language is intended to serve young people well, it still leaves open a loophole in Constitutional law- while young people cannot be discriminated against based on their age, they can be denied the chance to vote, or have their ability to vote abridged, for reasons that can also undercut voting rights for older citizens.

As demonstrated by the new Rock the Vote report, the 2011 Voting System Scorecard, we still have significant progress to make to better include 18-25 year olds in our elections. Perhaps more glaringly, the report indicates that less than 59% of young people (defined as 18-25 years old) are even registered to vote; this makes young people the segment of the US population least likely to be registered. Of those registered or eligible to be registered, many report difficulty understanding the processes.

The report works like this: it breaks down a series of areas related to voting, and gives each state a score in each of these areas. Topics include

registration (with scores for automatic registration, portable registration, online, same-day, and third party) for a possible area-total of 11 points,
voting (identification requirements, convenience, residency, absentee, overseas/military) with a possible area-total of 7 points,
and preparation (civic lessons, pre-registration) with a possible area-total of 3 points.

All together, the highest possible score is 21 points. Information on each sub-topic used to evaluate a state was collected from a variety of sources including FairVote, the Brennan Center, Demos, PEW, CIRCLE, the Fair Elections Legal Network, and several others.

Even the state with the highest score (Washington) received only a total of 14.2 or 68%. This score was based on a number of practices Rock the Vote endorses like online voter registration. States tied for the lowest score (South Carolina and Virginia) received an abysmal 3.8, or 18% of the total possible score. Some states such as California, Delaware and Maryland all received perfect scores in one area (“preparation”) but had room for improvement in other areas.

North Dakota was largely excluded from the report, since the state has no voter registration requirement. As a lack of voter registration requirements is often seen as a benefit to young people, Rock the Vote determined to discuss North Dakota as if full points had been given in the areas related to registration and pre-registration. If the state was therefore given full

points in these topics it would have a score of over 80%, more than 20% above any other state in the country, bumping North Dakota into the top-spot.
While this report shows many states making progress towards goal of more inclusive voting system, it is instructive about the case for reform that the highest score received was only 68%; a score that is barely passing.

Many states scored 0 points in the preparation section, which includes civic education and voter pre-registration. FairVote has taken a lead role in promoting good practices in this area. FairVote has been a national leader in promoting voter preregistration for young adults soon to be eligible to vote as a means to encourage voter registration in schools and at the DMV; we’ve taken a lead in securing it in recent years in Delaware, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. as detailed here. States where voter pre-registration bills are pending include New York and Massachusetts.

Rock the Vote reports that nationally less than 4% of 12th grade students were performing “above level” in civics classes; more than 60% are performing at a “basic” level. It is no wonder then that so many young people are registering to vote in the wrong way or at the wrong time. (For more information on FairVote’s civic lessons for students, please visit here). For related resources , see FairVote links on civic education ,an interactive map on registration,blogs related to the topic and pending legislation on voting reform.

Youth voting’s abysmal turn out numbers involve more than issues with pre-registration and civic learning, of course. Many problems arise when young mobile persons want to vote, but find themselves unable to obtain a ballot. As highlighted by the Rock the Vote report, this is often because some young people become most interested in a campaign close to an election, at time at which many states’ registration deadlines have long since passed. In fact, Rock the Vote found that 15% of people who tried to use their online voter registration form in 2008 did so after the deadline for the upcoming election, and 10,000 tried to register to vote on Election Day! Without same day voter registration, and easy-to-use absentee voting procedures, 18-25 year olds are often left out of the pool of eligible voters

Yet, in light of the difficulties involved with youth mobilization, Rock the Vote contends that 30 states have tried to pass or have passed legislation in the past year which would actually make it more difficult for young people to register and to vote.

Such legislation include requiring a state issued ID in order to vote, proposals to eliminate same day voter registration, and plans as radical as New Hampshire’s failed proposal to limit voting among college students to those whose parents lived in that community prior to the student attending college to avoid students “voting their feelings”.

Overall, what reports like Rock the Vote’s highlight are the needs for more comprehensive programs to educate voters and potential voters as to what options are available when registering and learning about civics in their area. However, such efforts will most effective if paired with efforts to reform current systems to become more inclusive for all citizens, easier for voters to understand, and streamlined. It’s very telling even the highest performing states received scores that no student would ever want to find on a report card.

More broadly, while the 26th amendment was a giant step forward for young people, the Rock the Vote report underscores the fact that it didn’t establish an absolute constitutional right to vote for young adults; rather, it gave them the all-too-tenuous level of voting rights provided to older citizens. Without a more affirmative right to vote in the Constitution it’s too easy for states to make decisions that undercut our voting rights – for people of any age, but often with the greatest impact on young adults.

Not Your Parents' Presidential Elections: The Decline of Swing States, 1960-2008

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:43:27 -0700

Summary: American presidential elections have undergone a dramatic change in recent decades.The number of swing states (which are states defined as projected to be won by less than 10% in elections in which the major parties candidates split the national popular vote) has dropped sharply, especially since 1988 and especially among our nation's largest and smallest states.

For example, only one of the 13 smallest states and only four of the 27 smallest states were swing states in 2008, much fewer than in the 1980s. We don't see this imbalance changing soon -- indeed, in 2008 only three of the smallest 13 states were within even a 15% partisanship disparity.

Furthermore, at the other end of the population spectrum in our 11 largest population states,, fewer than half were swing states in 2004 and 2008 -- down from 10 out of 11 of these states in the 1960 and the 1976 presidential elections and 8 of these states in 1988.

Looking forward, none of the 2008 non-swing states are expected to become swing states in 2012, yet some 2008 swing states may well move to non-swing state status. This decline would continue a 50-year trend summarized here.

Swing States (within 9%) by # 2008 Electoral Votes, 1960-2008*
Year	2008 Electoral Vote 15 or more	2008 Electoral Votes 9 to 14	2008 Electoral Votes 5 to 8	2008 Electoral Votes 4 or less	Total
2008	5 of 11 states	6 of 13 states	3 of 14 states	1 of 13 states	15
2004	4 of 11	6 of 13	5 of 14	1 of 13	16
1988	8 of 11	4 of 13	8 of 14	6 of 13	26
1976	10 of 11	6 of 13	8 of 14	5 of 13	29
1960	10 of 11	7 of 13	8 of 14	6 of 13	31

*Washington, D.C. is included in all years except 1960

Partisanship Disparity (P), All States, 1960-2008*

Year	P=<9%	9%<P<20%	P>=20%	Notes
2008	15	19	17	13R & 4D landslide states
2004	16	20	15	10R & 5D landslide states
1988	27	22	2	1R & 1D landslide states
1976	29	14	8	5R & 3D landslide states
1960	31	13	6	2R & 4D landslide states

*Washington, D.C. is included in all years except 1960

Of 11 largest population states with 15 or more electors in 2008

2008: 5 states within 9% partisan division (FL,NC, NJ, OH, PA)

2004: 4 states within 9% partisan division (FL, MI, OH, PA)

1988: 8 states within 9% partisan division

1976: 10 states within 9% partisan division (all but GA)

1960: 10 states within a 9% partisan division (all but GA)

Of 13 mid-sized states with 9 to 14 electors in 2008

2008: 6 states within 9% partisan division (VA,IN,MO,MN,WI,CO)

2004: 6 states within 9% partisan division

1988: 5 states within 9% partisan division

1976: 6 states within 9% partisan division

1960: 7 states within 9% partisan division

Of 14 smaller mid-sized states with 5 to 8 electors in 2008

2008: 3 states within 9% partisan division (NM,IA,NV)

2004: 5 states within 9% partisan division

1988: 8 states within 9% partisan division

1976: 8 states within 9% partisan division

1960: 8 states within 9% partisan division

Of 13 smallest population states (including DC except in 1960) with 4 or fewer electors in 2008

2008: 1 state within 9% partisan division (NH /Only 2 more within 15%)

2004: 1 state within 9% partisan division (NH / Only 3 more within 15%)

1988: 6 states within 9% partisan division

1976: 5 states within a 9% partisan division

1960: 6 states within a 9% partisan division

Dubious Democracy 1982-2010

Thu, 26 May 2011 08:37:57 -0700

In this eighth edition, Dubious Democracy 1982-2010 provides a comprehensive assessment of the level of competition and accuracy of representation in U.S. House elections in all 50 states from 1982 to 2010. It ranks each state on a "democracy index" that is a relative measurement based on average margin of victory, percentage of seats to votes, how many voters elect candidates and number of House races won by overwhelming landslides.

Use the below table of contents to read the report online. You can also download the data sheet in Excel.

Some highlighted national facts concerning the 2010 elections include:

Unusually high seat changes amidst generally lopsided races. 54 incumbents lost to challengers even as two-thirds of incumbents were re-elected by "landslide" margins of at least 20 percentage points.
Landslide wins continue. In seven states, every race was won by a landslide margin of at least 20 percentage points. Only six states (all with one or two seats except for New Mexico, with three) recorded no landslide win.
High victory margins. The average victory margin was a whopping 33 percentage points. Six of every ten (64.4%) U.S. House races were won by landslide margins of at least 20 percentage points. Only 81 races (18.6%) were won by competitive margins of less than 10 percentage points.
Apathy and representation. Nearly two in three eligible voters did not vote for a winning U.S. House representative.

Statewide Election Recounts, 2000-2009

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:23:25 -0700

The ability to handle a recount of votes to ensure fair, accurate and genuinely democratic outcomes is widely recognized as a critical component of election administration. Trust in elections requires trust in the recount process and ongoing vigilance in lessons to be learned about how best to do recounts and how to determine what victory margins and post-elections audit results should trigger a recount.

FairVote's April 2011 report by Rob Richie and Emily Hellman examines statewide election recount outcomes and practices in the United States, using data from the decade of elections taking place in the years 2000 to 2009 to determine how often they occur, how often they change outcomes, how much vote totals change and how these figures vary with the size of the electorate. We conclude that:

Statewide recounts are rare: Out of the 2,884 statewide general elections in the 2000 to 2009 decade, there were 18 statewide recounts, 11 of which were deemed "consequential"(with an original victory margin no more than 0.15 percent). In other words, there was one recount for every 160 statewide elections and one consequential recount for every 262 statewide elections. This pattern was true of most subcategories of statewide elections as well, including only two consequential recounts out of the 422 elections in this period for the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer.

Outcome reversals are even rarer: Over the 2000-2009 decade, recounts resulted in three reversals out of 11 consequential recounts, or one out of every 961 statewide elections. These reversals took place in the races for U.S. Senate in 2008 in Minnesota, auditor in 2006 in Vermont and governor in 2004 in Washington.

Margin shifts in recounts are small: Statewide recounts resulted in an average margin swing of 296 votes between the frontrunners, representing 0.027% of the statewide vote in those elections. The median average shift was 229 votes, with 15 of the 18 recounts changing the victory margin by fewer than 500 votes.

Margin shifts are smaller and recounts rarer in larger electorates: Recounts in elections with more voters altered the vote margin by lower percentages than recounts in elections with fewer voters. In the five cases in which the total votes cast were above two million, the margin shift was on average 0.016% of the vote (less than one for every 6,400 votes cast). In the eight cases in which the total votes cast were fewer than one million, the margin shift was on average 0.039% (less than one for every 2,500 votes cast). No recount took place in our three largest states.

Most states should revise their laws governing statewide recounts: Model state laws should establish clear post-election audit procedures and define a reasonable victory margin percentage for automatic, taxpayer-financed recounts.

Following are links to:

Copy (PDF) of the the report, A Survey and Analysis of Statewide Election Recounts, 2000-2009

Spreadsheet (Excel) with all of the report's data, including a comprehensive review of all statewide elections and data from the 18 elections with recounts

Understanding the RCV Election Results in District 10

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:21:52 -0800

Contact:

Steve Hill: (415) 665-5044, hill@steven-hill.com

Rob Richie: (301) 270-4616, rr@fairvote.org

Understanding the RCV election results in District 10

A FairVote Analysis

The Board of Supervisors race in District 10 was an unprecedented race in San Francisco’s seven-year history of using ranked choice voting (the first RCV elections took place in 2004). It featured 21 candidates, no incumbent and no obvious front runners. That resulted in an election in which the winning candidate, Malia Cohen, barely edged out the competition in an exceptionally close race. How close was it?

• The top vote-getter in the first round barely topped 12%.

• In the first round, the leading four candidates (Sweet, Kelly, Cohen and Tran) were all within about one third of a percent (0.34%) of each other. A fifth candidate (Moss) was within 1% of the first-round leader.

• Those five leaders remained the leaders and within 3.5% of each other (as a fraction of the first round continuing votes) for each of the following rounds until they were the last five continuing candidates.

San Francisco previously had an RCV contest in a supervisorial race that had 22 candidates (District 5 in 2004), but there were two clear front runners in that race that together had about 40% of the first round ballots and helped to order the field. That race was won decisively by the lead front runner. Similarly, other Board of Supervisors races this year requiring RCV tallies had far higher percentages for the two front runners, including 59% in District 6, 78% in District 7 and 82% in District 2.

But in District 10 the two front runners had less than 25% of the first round ballots. It was the most unusual race that San Francisco has ever seen due to the high number of candidates, the lack of any clear front runners, and ultimately in its closeness among five candidates. Given those atypical circumstances, ranked choice voting was decisive in selecting the legitimate winner preferred by the most voters.

COMPARISON TO OTHER ELECTORAL METHODS.

To understand the effectiveness of RCV, it is helpful to compare how this extraordinary race in District 10 would have unfolded using other electoral systems, specifically a plurality ("highest vote-getter wins") system or San Francisco's previous two round (November-December) runoff cycle.

Plurality elections. With a plurality system, the highest vote-getter wins regardless of how low their percentage of the vote. Plurality elections are used to elect the governor and other statewide offices, such as the attorney general in which this year’s winner will fall well short of having a majority of the vote, as have several recent California governors (as of this writing, the attorney general’s race is still undecided because of the closeness of the contest and a slow ballot count resulting from the vast number of absentee and provisional ballots). If the District 10 supervisorial race had been decided using this electoral system, the winner would have had only 12.06% of the popular vote and barely 2000 votes out of over 17,000 cast. The second-place finisher would have lost by a mere 30 votes, and the third and fourth place finishers by fewer than 60 votes. This would not have resulted in a very satisfactory or democratic outcome, as it would have meant that 88 percent of voters had selected a different candidate than the winner. San Francisco can be glad that it was not using a plurality system in the District 10 race.

Two round (November-December) runoff. If San Francisco's previous method with a separate runoff election in December among the top two finishers had been used, the candidate with the broadest support and the actual winner, Malia Cohen, would not have made it to the December runoff. Instead, the top two finishers facing off in the runoff would have been Lynette Sweet and Tony Kelly. Kelly would have made the runoff over Malia Cohen by a mere 27 votes and over Marlene Tran by only 29 votes.

So Kelly and Sweet would have squared off in December in what would undoubtedly have been a low turnout election. Typically in San Francisco's old runoff elections, voter turnout would plummet from November to December, sometimes by as much as 40% of the vote. That's because voters turn out in great numbers for the presidential or gubernatorial races in November, but lose enthusiasm over local races in December. Indeed, in the last December runoff for a District 10 race in 2000, voter turnout plummeted 46% from the November election. The winner was elected with fewer than 5900 votes, less than 30 percent of the voters that originally showed up to vote in this race in November (see Table 1 below).

Table 1. Runoff election, December 2000

District	November election (total votes)	December runoff total votes	Winner’s votes in Dec. runoff	Percent (winner’s votes compared to November votes)	Non-returning/ exhausted voters
District 10	19,764	10,668	5,887	29.8%	9096 (46.0%)

Advocates of returning San Francisco to a separate runoff election say one of its advantages is that, in a close race like this one in 2010, voters would be able to assess the benefits of the top two candidates. However if the past is any guide, not only would few voters return for that second election, but voters would have had to withstand a month and a half of more mudslinging and hack attack campaigning in which they heard the worst about their future supervisor. The tone of the campaign would have become increasingly bitter, and rather than some candidates openly endorsing competitors for second choice (as occurred under the RCV system) voters would have seen “everyone for themselves” behavior from the candidates.

In addition, a December runoff would have been expensive for candidates, undermining campaign finance reform. So-called 'independent' expenditures' focused on attack ads soared in the old runoff system, with the San Francisco Ethics Commission finding they quadrupled in December runoffs. The top two candidates in the runoff would have needed to quickly raise a lot of money, giving an advantage to whichever candidate has either more personal wealth or access to those organizations with wealth. And San Francisco taxpayers would have had to foot the bill for administering a second election, taking general fund revenue from other pressing needs at a time when the city is financially strapped.

Conclusion: A separate, second round runoff in December would have excluded the strongest candidate (Malia Cohen) from the runoff, exacerbated the ever-growing problem of money in elections, and resulted in a winner elected by a smaller, less representative electorate than a November election. Despite these shortcomings, a two round runoff would be far more preferable than the plurality method.

Ranked choice voting (also known as instant runoff voting).

The dispersed vote in the District 10 race challenged RCV more than any previous contest in San Francisco. Cohen's share of the first round ballots more than doubled during the course of the RCV tally but ultimately fell well short of 50% of the first round ballots. Still, the overall number of voters participating in the 2010 RCV race were comparable to the number of voters in the November-December 2000 runoff cycle. The number of voters participating in the December 2000 runoff and the final round of the RCV tally were in a similar range, as were the number and percentage of votes won by the winning candidate in both elections (see Table 2 below and compare to Table 1).

Table 2. RCV election, November 2010

District	November RCV election (total votes)	Final round instant runoff total votes	Winner’s votes (in final round)	Percent (winner’s votes compared to first round)	“Exhausted” ballots (non-return voters)
District 10	17,175	7934	4173	24.3%	9140

Despite the challenges of this District 10 race, RCV has several features that make it desirable compared to a separate December runoff. First, it elected the true winner with the most support, Malia Cohen, whereas a separate runoff among the top two finishers would have resulted in Cohen not making it into the runoff at all. Yet, in one indicator of Cohen’s strength as a candidate, election simulations show that she would have defeated any candidate paired against her in the final round. Cohen was the legitimate winner even though she would have lost by less than 0.4% in a plurality voting election and would have failed by 27 votes to make it into the December runoff.

In addition, Cohen, an African American candidate, was able to benefit greatly from the supporters of other African American candidates in the race (third place finisher Lynette Sweet and Dewitt Lacy in particular), resulting in the election of a black supervisor in this district historically won by black candidates (note that if no black candidate had won this race, that would have been the first time in decades that the Board of Supervisors had no black members). Cohen was more successful than any other candidate at building coalitions, which is plainly evident in following the trail of runoff rankings that accrue to her during 19 rounds of the RCV tally. About 60 percent of the voters in this race used all three of their rankings. The ranked ballots allowed coalition-building to be a decisive factor in who was elected ultimately, instead of the winner benefitting from the usual hack attack, big money campaigns.

Conclusion: This race with 21 candidates and no clear frontrunners challenged the ability of any electoral system to accommodate it. This was a very unusual, even atypical race that San Francisco had never seen before and may not see again for a long time. Given the parameters of this race, RCV functioned smoothly to produce a winner that was preferred by the most voters. It fostered a degree of coalition-building as candidates and voters used the ranked ballots effectively, and unlike other races this race was substantially free of negative, mudslinging attacks as the multi-candidate field focused on seeking the second and third rankings from the supporters of other candidates.

Given the challenges of the District 10 race, reasonable people will disagree if it would be more valuable to have either a second election that helps voters to choose among the top two finishers in what is likely to be a low turnout, mudslinging election, or to finish the election in a single November election where the winner can emerge from the large pack of candidates on the strength of coalition building. But it is important to note that the negatives of a separate runoff election between the top two finishers would be prevalent no matter how many candidates enter the initial race in November, while the challenges that stem from using RCV decline as the number of candidates decreases to the norm that we have seen in other San Francisco RCV contests. The District 10 race was atypical in its complexity.

Postscript: Addressing Three Common Myths about RCV Elections in San Francisco

1. RCV is responsible for delaying election results.

That is not correct. The fact that the statewide attorney general's race remains undecided due to a half million still-uncounted absentee ballots should put this myth to rest. Delays in RCV results are entirely due to two reasons: 1) With so many absentee and provisional ballots, San Francisco takes a long time to get all the ballots scanned in both non-RCV and RCV contests; and 2) the Department of Elections has made a policy decision to only release first rankings on election night, and to delay running the RCV tally until the first Friday after the election, when in fact it easily could run preliminary tallies on election night and each day thereafter. As the Registrar of Voters in Alameda County (which uses the exact same RCV voting equipment as San Francisco) recently stated in a PBS news broadcast, running the RCV tally literally takes seconds. It’s as quick and easy as walking to the computer that is used as the central tabulator, hitting a few keystrokes on the keyboard, and seconds later you have the results. Each time you run the RCV tally, you are doing it with the dataset of ballots that have been scanned to that point, and that provides preliminary results. It is simply untrue that you need to have all ballots scanned before the RCV tally can be run, since all results in all races, whether non-RCV or RCV, are preliminary until the election is officially certified 28 days after the election. Other jurisdictions that have used RCV elections have run the tally on election night using the exact same voting equipment that San Francisco has. Unfortunately by waiting until Friday to run the tally, the Department of Elections creates a false impression of “wild swings” in election results for some races. In Districts 2 and 10, the candidate ahead on election night in first rankings in fact was losing to another candidate, and that would have been immediately obvious if the RCV tallies had been run for both races on election night.

2. RCV was responsible for Ed Jew (who was later convicted of bribery) winning in District 4 in 2006.

Ed Jew would have won a plurality “highest vote-getter wins” election and most likely would have won in a December runoff as well. In 2002, Jew, who is Chinese-American, had a strong showing and finished third in this highly Asian American district. He was well-known in the district, and in the 2006 race he was the most popular Asian American candidate, finishing first in first rankings and then picking up significant second and third rankings from the supporters of other Asian American candidates. The second-place finisher, Ron Dudum, was not Asian American and it is unlikely that Dudum would have been able to win a majority in this highly Asian American district in a December runoff. Dudum also failed to win a majority in the 2002 runoff when he ran against another Asian-American candidate, and a FairVote analysis of the 2006 ballots shows that any of the top three Asian American candidates in 2006 would have defeated Dudum if paired against him one-on-one. So Jew’s win with RCV is not surprising given the majority voting pattern of his district. Some have speculated that the troubles that caused Ed Jew to eventually resign from office (he lived out of his district and was soliciting bribes, for which he was later convicted) would have been uncovered if there had been a December runoff, but this contention is incorrect. The solicitation of bribes by Supervisor Jew did not occur until AFTER he was elected; and he had been living out of his district for a number of years prior to his election, but it was only uncovered during the investigation regarding the bribes. Indeed, when Mr. Jew ran for the same seat in 2002, it was not discovered during the campaign that he was living out of his district.

3. With RCV, you can win by being everyone's second choice.

RCV now has been used to elect San Francisco leaders in every November election since 2004. Many of those elections required RCV tallies to determine a winner, but this is the first year in which candidates who led in the first round were defeated by candidates who came from behind to win. That happened in two races, Districts 2 and 10, and both of those races were extremely close in which the ultimate winners initially trailed their top opponents by less than 1% in the first round. With RCV, you can't ignore coalition-building but you also need to be a lot of voters' first choice as well. RCV represents an appropriate balance: you have to earn enough first choice support from some people who really want you, but you can't be so polarizing that backers of all other candidates overwhelmingly reject you. Winners, ultimately, are those that have a strong core of support as indicated by having a substantial number of first rankings but also have a broad base of support indicated by having your share of second and third rankings from the supporters of other candidates.

Background info:

* Watch a seven-minute segment on the PBS New Hour with Jim Lehrer on Jean Quan's victory in the RCV mayoral election in Oakland: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec10/oakland_11-19.html

* Read Steven Hill's commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle on "The New Politics of Ranked-Choice Elections":
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/14/EDUH1GBFVT.DTL