FairVote Feed: Ranked Choice Voting in Bay Area Elections

Help FairVote MN's Ranked Choice Voting Video Win Thousands of Dollars For Fairer Elections!

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:16:41 -0700

Today is the last day to show your support for ranked choice voting and FairVote Minnesota in the Looking@Democracy contest. Vote now!

In the Looking@Democracy contest, artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, and others compete to make the most compelling media presentation on how to improve American democracy. There is $100,000 in prize money to be won by the contest's eleven total winners, and where better for that money to go than to an innovator in the world of democracy?

One important contestant is FairVote ally FairVote Minnesota, which entered a fun video about the benefits of ranked choice voting (instant runoff voting) elections. In the video, stacks of coins are used to represent ranked choice votes for favorite president. The video lucidly demonstrates how ranked choice voting allows voters to have more than two choices and still be confident that the winner will have real majority support.

Check out their video at the contest page. If you like it, click the big red "VOTE" button. You'll be asked to either log in through Facebook or create an account on their page, either of which take very little time and effort. After that you can leave a supportive comment or check out the other videos entered in the contest. Finally, don't forget to learn more about ranked choice voting and what it can do for your community.

FairVote's First Take on RCV Elections in Four Bay Area Cities

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 14:57:29 -0800

On November 16, this piece was updated to reflect final results.

Ballots for Tuesday’s ranked choice voting (RCV) elections in four cities in the Bay Area has now largely been counted. It is clear that RCV has again worked well. Because of RCV, voters in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and San Leandro were able to elect leaders in a high turnout presidential election instead of having to rely on either low turnout runoffs in December or low turnout primaries in June. As a result, a far larger and more representative electorate participated in city elections than when these cities used non-RCV voting systems.

oday we focus on three particularly important points emerging from the 2012 elections.

CANDIDATES OF COLOR AGAIN THRIVED IN RCV RACES, EVEN WHEN OUTSPENT

Racial minorities continue to do remarkably well as candidates in ranked choice voting elections in the Bay Area. In San Francisco, for example, there are 18 offices chosen by RCV, and 16 next year will be held by people of color -- including two new winners this year in the District 5 and District 7 races for the Board of Supervisors. Once these new members are seated, the Board of Supervisors will have five members who are Asian American, two who are African American, two who are Latino and two who are white. In 2004, when RCV was first used, the Board had only four people of color, including only one Asian American.

As evidenced by Oakland’s District 3 City Council election, voters of color are using the RCV system to clear effect. Three strong African American candidates ran in District 3, with their backers generally promoting ranking these candidates first, second and third. Although a white candidate led in first choices, Lynette McElhaney prevailed, with particularly strong support from voters who had backed Derrick Mohammed and Neisha de Witt as a first choice. McElhaney won despite being outspent by Sean Sullivan – a common pattern in RCV races in which the winning candidate has been particularly active in direct outreach to voters.

RATE OF VOTER ERROR IS LOW: VOTERS HANDLE RCV BALLOT WELL

The results demonstrate that election officials in both Alameda County and San Francisco continue to do an excellent job in ensuring voters know how to fill out an RCV ballot. Even though Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and San Leandro have all held RCV elections before, many voters came out to vote for president this year who had never voted locally in an RCV election.

Nevertheless, very few voters made an error in indicating a first choice in RCV races. In Alameda County RCV races, for example, more than 99.5% of voters in multi-candidate RCV races cast valid ballots, including more than 99.6% of voters in the races with the most candidates in Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro. In San Francisco’s large-field RCV races in District 5 and District 7, more than 99.4% of voters cast valid ballots for their first choice, and more than three in four voters indicated a valid second choice as well. These rates of invalid ballots are far lower than the invalid ballot rate in the U.S. Senate primary in June 2012 , and lower than the expected rate of error in the San Francisco school board races.

Ballot image reports are not yet available for the Alameda County races, but are available for analysis in the two San Francisco races that require multiple rounds to determine a winner (District 5 and District 7). In both races two-thirds of voters used all three of their rankings and eight in ten voters ranked two – this despite the fact that many endorsing entities like the San Francisco Chronicle endorsed only one or two candidates.

A TRUE “INSTANT RUNOFF" IN 2012 : MOST RCV OUTCOMES CLEAR ON ELECTION NIGHT

Election officials in San Francisco and Alameda County should be applauded for choosing to run the ranked choice voting algorithm on election night. Doing so not only provided faster results, but also clarified that RCV has not been the reason for any past delays in determining outcomes.

Indeed the timing for reporting results should be no different than when reporting non-RCV results. Just as with non-RCV elections, most RCV races will be known as soon as the RCV tally is run. If an RCV election is close, of course, then the winner may not be decided until absentee and provisional ballots have been completely processed. That of course is no different than in non-RCV races, such as the California Attorney General race in 2010 that required weeks to decide, in which the race is close and all absentee and provisional ballots must be processed before the winner can be conclusively determined.

This year, RCV tallies on election night made it instantly clear who was the winner in nearly every race in which there was no majority winner in the first round. In San Francisco’s District 5, for example, London Breed led with less than 30% of first choices, but was a decisive winner over incumbent Christina Olague in the RCV tally – showing strength in securing second and third choices that propelled her to being a certain winner. Lynette McElhaney was second in first choices in Oakland’s District 3, but was a clear winner after running the RCV tally.

By running the tally early, the public and the candidates had more clarity about who is ahead and who is behind, as is normal when election returns are reported. In San Francisco’s District 7, for example, Norman Yee leads in first choices, but is locked in a very tight race in the final round of the RCV tally with F.X Crowley. In San Leandro’s District 2, incumbent Ursula Reed leads in first choices and is in a tight race with challenger Morgan Mack-Rose in the final round of the RCV tally.

The only two RCV races where outcomes were in doubt as remaining ballots were tallied were ones where the election was extremely close. The winner was ultimately the finalist who earned the most votes in the “instant runoff” – in other words, was preferred to the other finalist by more voters. Norman Yee in San Francisco and Ursula Reed in San Leandro ultimately won these clsoe races, but all the votes has to be counted, just as would have been the case in a close non-RCV race that had uncounted ballots.

For more information, see FairVote's page on Bay Area RCV Elections and San Francisco civic leaders' website SF Better Elections.

RCV Election Results: Portland and San Francisco

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:57:30 -0800

As our latest newswire describes, voters in six cities across the United States used ranked choice voting for their elections. San Francisco, California and Portland, Maine were among cities using ranked choice voting for the first time to elect their mayors.

In Portland, Michael Brennan led in the first round and was the strongest candidate in securing votes from backers of defeated candidates, winning with 56% when matched against his strongest opponent. In San Francisco, Interim Mayor Ed Lee led in the first round and also expanded his lead during the count, securing 60% of the final round tally.

See our visual presentation of San Francisco's three citywide elections decided in multiple rounds of RCV tallies. For another portrayal of San Francisco's results, visit the Bay Citizen Simulator.

San Francisco (CA) 2011 Mayoral RCV Results --

San Francisco (CA) 2011 District Attorney RCV Results--

San Francisco (CA) 2011 Sheriff RCV Results--

Portland (ME) 2011 Mayoral Results --

Ranked choice voting in major elections

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:19:15 -0700

Ranked choice voting (RCV, or instant runoff) accommodates voters having more than two choices at the polls. This month, San Francisco (CA) will elect a mayor and two other citywide leaders with RCV. Portland (ME) and Telluride (CO) will elect mayors in hotly contested RCV races, and St. Paul (MN) and Takoma Park (MD) will elect city councilors with RCV. In Ireland, Michael Higgins was elected president with RCV, breaking out of a 7-candidate field for a landslide win thanks to a combination of strong first choice rankings and backup preferences from supporters of losing candidates. Cambridge (MA) will use the choice voting form of RCV that provides fair representation to its voters.

FairVote has been deeply involved in many of these implementations and will be tracking elections closely next week. Although controversial with some, RCV is working well -- and has strong backing from almost all mayoral candidates in both Portland and San Francisco. For more on the races, see:

RCV in San Francisco: New opeds by Matt Gonzalez & Steven Hill
Portland: Our Portlandvotes123.com, TV local news story and FairVote voter survey
Coverage in Freakonomics
Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio & Economist on San Francisco
Associated Press on Portland
Cambridge: Candidates for school board & city council
Rob Richie blogs on Irish presidential election
St. Paul elections: Voter education site & Star-Tribune commentary

Ranked Choice Voting in Action

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:03:53 -0700

Ranked choice voting or instant runoff voting ensures that the candidate that wins an election wins the majority of the vote. Voters will use ranked choice voting this fall in several exciting races: wide-open elections for mayor in San Francisco (CA) and Portland (ME); the presidential race in Ireland; and for other city races in the U.S., including St. Paul (MN). New voter education initiatives are helping show how easy ranked choice voting is for voters, and there have been excellent media stories.

Caleb Kleppner explains how ranked choice votes are counted in Portland, ME
Local newspaper in Portland discusses RCV
Article from San Francsico has a breakdown of some of the 16 mayoral candidates running
Check out this video of Portland election administrator Bud Philbrick explaining RCV
Voters in St. Paul, Minesota can go to this page for RCV resources
The Irish presidential election also uses RCV

Other FairVote RCV Resources

Ranked choice voting in the Bay Area
FairVote's http://www.InstantRunoff.com

Major Legal Victory for Ranked Choice Voting – and Reform

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:20:40 -0700

(Update, August 24, 2011: The office of the city attyorney in San Francisco reports that the deadline has passed for an appeal of the Ninth Circuit's ruling. The case is closed.)

On May 20, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower federal court ruling rejecting a legal challenge to the City of San Francisco's use of ranked choice voting (RCV, also known as instant runoff voting, or IRV). The three-judge panel emphatically dismissed the plaintiffs' arguments, including a particularly clear rejection of the claim that RCV violates the principles of one-person, one-vote or equal protection under the law. The court's well-reasoned and well-researched opinion comes as a growing number of cities and states are implementing RCV, and should eliminate any concerns about the legality of RCV under federal law. In addition to San Francisco, RCV is used in the California cities of Oakland and San Leandro, and about a dozen other locations, including St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Portland, Maine.

The lead plaintiff in this challenge to RCV was Ron Dudum, a perennial candidate who lost in his bid for the Board of Supervisors in 2006. Dudum sought to represent a majority Asian American district that year, and an analysis of the RCV rankings in the race indicate that he would have been defeated one-on-one when matched against any of the top three Asian American candidates. Just as he lost in a traditional runoff election in 2002, he was defeated in 2006 in the final RCV tally by the most popular of the Asian American candidates.

Despite the logic of his defeat, Dudum brought a suit seeking to halt San Francisco's current form of RCV. Due to voting machine limitations, San Francisco restricts voters to three rankings, which Dudum claimed violated the equal protection rights of voters who don't include one of the two strongest candidates among their rankings. Dudum's complaint indicated his goal was to move to unlimited rankings, but a statement from one of the lawsuit's leading financial backers, the California Apartment Association, demonstrates its actual goal was to halt the use of any form of RCV, based on its misperception that RCV is detrimental to conservative candidates.

Writing for the unanimous panel, Judge Berzon methodically explained and rejected each of the plaintiffs' arguments one-by-one in strong language. Calling any burdens imposed by restricting voters to three rankings "minimal at best," the panel concluded that the burdens Dudum alleged are "largely ephemeral, disappearing upon examination" and that "Dudum's contention mischaracterizes the actual operation of San Francisco's restricted IRV system and so cannot prevail."

Under an RCV system, voters get one vote and one ballot, but rank their "backup" choices in order of preference. If no candidate wins with an initial majority of first choices, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their supporters' second choices are distributed to the remaining candidates in the first of what can be a series of "instant runoffs." The process of elimination and redistribution continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes among the remaining candidates. Because of the technical limitations of the ballot-counting machines - also found in several other cities, but soon to be removed in the next generation of optical scan voting equipment - San Francisco limits the ranking to three candidates, a restriction the court found to be constitutional.

Here's a summary of how the 9th Circuit struck down each of Dudum's arguments:

(1) The system does not allow any voter to cast more ballots or votes than other voters, definitively addressing the claim that RCV gives some voters more than one vote.

(2) Any ballots that "exhaust" during the count (meaning they don't rank any of the remaining candidates) have been counted in the election. As will happen to even more voters in a vote-for-one plurality system, they happened to count only for losing candidates, but that does not mean they didn't count.

(3) The RCV system does not result in vote dilution because the ability to rank preference does not affect the mathematical weight of any vote;

(4) Any of the "extremely limited" burdens on voters resulting from the system are justified by legitimate government interests, including the ability of the voter to express more nuanced preferences in an RCV system. The judges wrote, "in sum, we have no difficulty in holding that these important government interests are more than sufficient to outweigh the extremely limited burdens - if any - that the restricted IRV features Dudum challenges impose upon San Francisco's voters."

Although the opinion did not endorse a particular election system, it noted a number of benefits to RCV in contrast to both plurality voting and traditional runoff elections. RCV provides the voter more influence over his elected representation - if the winner is not to be his or her first choice, that voter has a chance to help elect a second or third choice. Doing so allows for more nuanced voting preferences than traditional vote-for-one systems, and, as Judge Berzon pointed out, "means that candidates with greater plurality support tend to be elected, as compared to a traditional plurality system." RCV also allows for voters to openly support third party candidates, without casting a "spoiler" vote.

Bankrolled by the California Apartment Association (CAA), the plaintiffs hired the well-known political advocacy and law firm Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Gross & Leoni, LLP. The CAA's online statement discussing the case suggests that its motivations were blatantly political and clearly designed to eliminate RCV rather than the lawsuit's professed goal of allowing voters more than three rankings. Here is the nearly incoherent statement provided by CAA Legal Committee Chairman Dave Wasserman of San Francisco explaining why they were involved in the case:

"So the issue across the state, and indeed the nation, is how ranked choice voting (RCV) can be utilized to essentially crowd the field so as to ensure that the most qualified, and even most popular, candidate is defeated. The dilution of votes works against the strongest candidate. Just ask Don Perata who lost the Oakland Mayoral election. In big elections, like a mayoral one, the progressive left will field a slew of people who will garner second and third choice votes. The statistical odds favor their ultimate victory as compared to the main vote getter (candidate who has the most first choice votes) based upon how RCV tabulates voting points. In San Francisco, we have two supervisors who won with a minority of first choice votes but who garnered more second and third choice picks. This means, with RCV, that we oftentimes cannot get behind a strong candidate, given the likelihood that a lesser candidate will take the election. As such, our political sway is greatly diminished under the RCV scheme. Just ask the folks in Oakland."

It's hard to know where to begin in correcting Wasserman's claims. Briefly, however:

2010 mayoral candidate Don Perata wasn't the most popular candidate in the Oakland election. More Oakland voters preferred Jean Quan to Perata when comparing them one-on-one - and Quan won the most votes of any Oakland mayoral candidate in decades.
Any "dilution of votes" due to "crowding the field" theoretically would hurt the voters who spread their vote among several candidates, not backers of a single candidate. This claim directly challenges the alleged basis of the lawsuit, which was that limiting rankings to three hurt voters.
"The progressive left" is no more likely to have more candidates running than conservatives, depending on the context -- just look at the 2012 presidential election. Indeed, this year in a special election in California for Assembly District 4 there was one Democratic candidate matched against seven Republicans in the first round. The Democrat led in that first round, securing 30% of the vote as compared to 21% for the top Republican But the Republican won a runoff election, just as a Republican would have almost certainly won with ranked choice voting. Both runoffs and ranked choice voting uphold majority rule for whichever side has the most support.

It is the last part of Wasserman's statement that may suggest what's really going on: "Our political sway is greatly diminished under the RCV scheme." What RCV elections demonstrate is that big money interest groups like CAA have less power to control outcomes than in a one-on-one runoff election, when they can pour money against the candidate that interest group opposes. In 2003, the San Francisco Ethics Commission formally endorsed moving forward with RCV as quickly as possible because it had determined that runoff elections created more power for special interest groups. In the 2002 runoff elections, independent expenditures had quadrupled over the first round - and largely were spent in negative ads attacking candidates.

Rather than help any one side in the partisan game, RCV helps voters - and creates incentives for candidates who can get to know more voters directly in their effort to earn majority support against their strongest opponents. Rather than disenfranchises voters, RCV promotes candidates who work to connect with voters in their community, earning second or third choice support in a way that hardworking conservative candidates can do as well as progressive candidates. Experience from RCV elections suggests that earning second and third choices is best accomplished by showing that you are ready to listen to voters; they may not see you as their first choice, but can believe that at least you will not ignore them. As with several RCV elections, Jean Quan's victory in Oakland in 2010 seems grounded in her attending far more community meetings and having far more direct contact with voters than her much better-funded rival Perata. But well-funded special interest group like the CAA may lose out if their preferred candidate tries to win by relying on spending more money.

The Ninth Circuit's decision is an important legal victory, both for RCV and election reform as a whole. The judges' discussion of the challenges inherent to all election systems, including the most commonly used "winner take all" or "first past the post" system, highlights the very real need for election reform on all levels of government in the United States. Their ruling leaves RCV in place for this November's highly competitive, San Francisco mayoral election. The race currently has several strong candidates, but ultimately city voters will elect as their leader the individual with strong enough support to advance out of the early rounds, but broad enough support to be able to defeat his or her strongest opponent one-on-one. You can find out more about the election and RCV in the Bay Area at Demochoice's new San Francisco page and FairVote's Bay Area RCV resource page.

Egypt’s parliamentary elections – The roots of a democracy in denial

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:35:40 -0800

In 2010, Egypt held parliamentary elections which were widely criticized at home and abroad as corrupt and anti-democratic. Of particular concern was the fate of the Muslim Brothers, who had risen to prominence as the main opposition party in the 2005 elections, only to be swept completely out of Parliament in 2010. The Brotherhood’s crushing defeat sparked allegations of corruption and vote suppression by the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak amid widespread reports of irregularities at the polls. This article examines the 2010 elections through an institutional lens, examining the structure of elected government under the Egyptian constitution and discussing the extent to which the democratic process appears to have been subverted during the recent elections.

General Introduction – The Egyptian Republic

Egypt has been a Republic since a 1952 coup of the army leaders who could count among them Gamal Abdel Nasser- considered today as the founding father of the modern Egyptian Republic. While generally called “Egypt”, its complete name is the Arab Republic of Egypt. Islam is the state religion although, theoretically, a freedom of belief is guaranteed. I place an emphasis on “theoretically” because of the Coptic Christian community’s current situation, which is closely linked to myriad elections issues.

Current voting methodology and institutions

There are three great elections in Egypt: for President, the Chamber of People and the Shura Council.

President

The first (and the most important) election is the presidential election. Every 6 years, Egyptians have to elect their president in a runoff-two-round system. The current president, Hosni Mubarak, has led the country since 1981. He is now in his fifth term, and international observers do not know if he will seek a sixth in 2011. If not, his son, Gamal Mubarak, (the certain next leader of the National Democratic Party) is the favorite to be the next Egyptian president.

This election is watched by a special body called the Presidential Election Commission, established by Article 76 of the constitution.. It is supposed to enjoy complete independence, and is charged with the supervision of the whole Presidential election process.

Parliament

The chamber of people

There are 508 members in the People’s assembly (Magless al shaab). 498 of them are directly elected by Egyptian voters using a first past the post direct ballot. The last 10 members are directly introduced by the president. People vote by districts, of which there are 254 in the whole country. Every district votes for two representatives and at least one of them must be a worker or a peasant according to the constitution. The Egyptian High Elections Commission controls the reliability of the election process, and was the center of much attention in December 2010.

The Shura Council

The Upper house of the parliament is called the Shura council (Magless al shura). It is a 264-member assembly where representatives are elected for 6 years. 176 of them are directly chosen by Egyptian voters and 88 members are appointed by the President of the Republic. However, legislative powers of this house are limited as the People’s Assembly remains the main institution. This is indeed more a consultative house as the word shura stands for “consultation” in Arabic.

The December 2010 Elections

Elections for the People’s Assembly caught the world’s eye in December 2010. Egyptian parliamentary elections were called fraudulent and corrupt.Unfortunately, it appears the elections lived up to the accusations.

The National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak won 420 seats while the main official opposition neo-liberal party (Wafd) won 15 seats, and independents also known as Muslim Brothers won 9 seats (the Brothers later refused the seats they had won in protest of the results).

The outcome of the election appears especially surprising when we consider that , if we look at the 2005 parliamentary elections , we notice that Muslim Brothers used to retain 88 seats, or 20% of the assembly -- a historical record for the banned organization. The Brotherhood has effectively been officially forbidden in Egypt since the September 1981 assassination of President Anwar Al Sadat by some of their members. In the years preceding the 2005 election, however, Hosni Mubarak underestimated the gathering potential of the brotherhood and began to tolerate their activities in Egyptian society. Thus the Muslim Brothers managed to rise as the principal opposition bloc and to obtain this historical record in 2005.

How can a group go from controlling 20 percent of parliament in 2005 to losing nearly all of its seats in less than a decade’s time? “Where do the Brothers go from here”? famous Almasry Al Youm newspaper columnist Issandr al Amrani asked in a column explaining the evolution of the Brotherhood’s situation during the past 5 years.

The answer lies in the barriers Egypt presents to real democracy. Apparently recognizing Muslims Brothers as a threat to his power and wanting to prepare the field for his son to take a controlling role in his political party, President Mubarak is widely accused of rigging election results and using intimidation tactics to ensure his son’s eventual rise to power.

While in a full democracy, politicians and actors of the civic society try to improve voter turnout, Egyptian officials try to control and to lower it. A wide and impressive campaign of pressure drove turnout down to the ridiculous level of 25%. Although the court cancelled the votes in 24 pro-Mubarak districts, the Election Commission (manipulated by Mubarak despite their mandate for independent review) overturned the court’s decision and ordered the validation of the outcomes in the questionable districts. People also denounced the intimidating presence of police in front of election polls. Egyptian media reported that 10 people were killed during the electoral process across the country, simply as a result of their trying to vote.

Reaction to the controversial election has been intense. The Muslim Brothers boycotted the assembly after the elections, refusing the 9 seats they won. Such pre-eminent opposition leaders as the former chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed Al Baradei called for boycotting the polls. Al Baradei Still has a great influence in Egypt although he is not affiliated to any political party. These reactions might be evidence of other reasons beside official suppression for the low turnout seen in the election.

The confluence of these factors in an election marred by allegations of corruption is an ominous sign for Egyptian democracy. An increasing number of signs point to Egypt’s status as a democracy in denial, in which constitutionally protected freedoms and institutions are cast aside by leaders seeking to consolidate their grip on power. 6001 members of Muslim Brotherhood were arrested in 2010 alone, signaling the beginning of a political schizophrenia. And while recent events in Tunisia have driven home a stark lesson on the dangers of denial, only time will tell how that lesson has been received by Egypt’s leaders.