Instant Runoff Voting in San Francisco - saving money, time and democracy

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In San Francisco, they just started using "Ranked Choice Voting" (more
commonly known as Instant Runoff Voting or IRV) for local elections.
They used to have an expensive runoff if the winner had less than 50%
of the vote, which was most of the time.  The runoff did not always
result in a win for the front-runner, though it usually did.

See http://www.sfrcv.com/ for more info.

I'm most impressed by the transparency of the process.  For example,
within 24 hours after each election they will release ballot images
for the ballots they have gotten to by that point (i.e. not including
all provisional and absentee votes).  The actual, partial results for
last Tuesday are now at

 http://web.sfgov.org/site/election_index.asp?id=28171

I'm a fan of Approval Voting,

 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvote/

but IRV is far better than the current "first past the post" system.

Hats off to San Francisco!

Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged.  GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60

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From:  Steven Hill, Center for Voting and Democracy, (415) 665-5044, 
 www.sfrcv.com 
Subject: Press Release:  SF Races for all seven Supervisors decided; 
results were "instant" after all 
 
PRESS RELEASE 

WINNERS IN FINAL FOUR RACES ANNOUNCED FOR BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON 
FRIDAY AFTERNOON 

PREVIOUS THREE WINNERS ANNOUNCED ON ELECTION NIGHT 

ALL SEVEN RACES ANNOUNCED WITHIN 72 HOURS OF THE ELECTION -- RESULTS 
WERE "INSTANT" AFTER ALL 

SAN FRANCISCO HAS ITS DECEMBERS BACK -- NO MORE DECEMBER 
ELECTIONS!        

On Friday at 4 pm, Director of Elections John Arntz held a press 
conference in City Hall and announced the ranked choice voting 
results for the final four races for Board of Supervisors. Those 
races and the results were: 

District 1   Jake McGoldrick, incumbent (winner) 

District 5   Ross Mirkarimi (winner) 

District 7   Sean Elsbernd, incumbent (winner) 

District 11  Gerardo Sandoval, incumbent (winner) 

These four races are in addition to the winners announced by the 
Department of Elections on Election Night, which were: 

District 2   Michela Alioto-Pier, incumbent (winner) 

District 3  Aaron Peskin, incumbent (winner) 

District 9   Tom Ammiano, incumbent (winner) 

Approximately 4000 absentee and provisional ballots remain to be 
counted in each district, but the vote margin between the 
front-runner and the rest of the field in each race is too great to 
be overcome. 

"It looks like all seven races are over," said Steven Hill from the 
Center for Voting and Democracy.  "It took only 72 hours to figure 
out the winners in all seven races.  If there hadn't been a minor 
glitch in the RCV tabulation conducted on Wednesday (which was 
rectified quickly and approved by the Secretary of State), the 
results would have been known within 24 hours after the polls had 
closed. It looks like the results were 'instant' after all." 

In addition to announcing winners a full SIX WEEKS sooner than under 
the old December runoff system, Hill noted that all the winners won 
with more votes than in the December 2000 runoff elections, when 
voter turnout dropped by 50 percent. 

"For instance, in District 1 in December 2000, Jake McGoldrick won 
with only 7486 votes. In 2004, he is winning with over 11,200 votes 
(with 4000 absentee and provisional ballots still to count), 50 
percent more votes than he had last time." 

Ross Mirkarimi is winning District 5 with over 11,100 votes (with 
about 4000 absentee and provisional ballots still to count), but 
winner Matt Gonzalez only had only 10,300 votes in the December 2000 
runoff. Incumbent Aaron Peskin has won in District 3 with over 14,000 
votes, twice as many as he won with in December 2000. 

"That means more voters cast a vote that counted toward electing 
their supervisor," noted Hill. "That's a win for San Franciscans, and 
a win for democracy. More voters picked their supervisor, and fast 
results means that San Francisco avoided a December runoff election, 
saving millions in taxes (the cost of the second election) and 
another month of hack attack mudslinging campaigns, since December 
runoff campaigns were notoriously negative." 

Estimates are that a citywide runoff election had been costing San 
Francisco taxpayers approximately $3 million (with supervisor runoffs 
costing a pro-rated amount). Plus, it cost candidates more money to 
run a second election, and ongoing difficulties for the Department of 
Elections who had to run back-to-back elections in November and 
December, plus for San Francisco voters who had to trudge out to the 
polls in the middle of December. 

"San Francisco has its Decembers back," said Hill. "Christmas came 
early this year, in the form of getting rid of expensive, 
inconvenient, mudslinging, and usually low-turnout December runoff 
elections."