October 8, 2009 Instant Runoff Voting Video - Why Aspen's May election makes a great federal case What happens to your vote in an instant runoff voting election? Does IRV help your favorite candidate win?...
October 5, 2009 Is New York a prime guinea pig for Instant Runoff Voting now? If New York does adopt optical scan voting machines. the state is a prime guinea pig for Instant Runoff Voting experiment. At least that is what Rob Richie, FairVote director hopes.
October 4, 2009 Issues with Hendersonville's Instant Runoff Voting Pilot ...Hendersonville has not had meetings to invite public input... An exit poll (conducted using IRV advocates) said that one third of voters polled came to the polls unprepared to rank their choices, but thats ok in the minds of IRV advocates.
October 3, 2009 Hendersonville Instant Runoff Voting - presentations at retirement home, city bill-pay dept, LWV & Apple Fest The City of Hendersonville, North Carolina will be conducting its November 3 municipal election through instant runoff voting, or what they call instant runoff voting.
September 28, 2009 Which is better for minorities - Instant Runoff Voting or Traditional Runoff Elections? ...In North Carolina, in fact, minority leaders have been outspoken in their opposition to IRV and spoken in favor of traditional runoff elections. There have been several traditional runoff elections that propelled minority candidates into office.
September 27, 2009 Traditional Runoff Elections vs Instant Runoff Voting Which are better for democracy, traditional on-on-one runoff elections or instant runoff voting elections?
September 26, 2009 Instant Runoff Voting makes every vote count, RIGHT? Video with surprise ending see what happens when a few hundred Green Party voters show up at the last minute to vote.
September 24, 2009 Pierce Co will reconsider Instant Runoff Voting in November [Washington] In May of this year, the Pierce County Auditor found that IRV was costing too much and the county could save $600,000 if they scrapped instant runoff voting asap. Since 56,751 of 90,738 Pierce County Voters polled said they did not like IRV, it made sense to put the issue back to the voters in November.
September 24, 2009 Pierce Co will reconsider Instant Runoff Voting in November
September 23, 2009 Long Beach, CA to study instant runoff voting on Oct 6, significant opposition exists The City of Long Beach California will hold a study session on Instant Runoff Voting on October 6. Yesterday the City Council narrowly agreed on the measure. There is significant opposition to changing Long Beach's city charter to require IRV.
September 23, 2009 David Richie- "IRV worked let's move on" so Aspen voters just sit down and be quiet!
September 18, 2009 IRV "might be overkill for Brattleboro," says Town Clerk
September 13, 2009 St Paul IRV tasting parties: "you might end up drinking some swill you never voted for"
September 13, 2009 Spread of IRV slowed when CA senate defeates AB 1121
September 7, 2009 Dollars spent on direct lobbying for IRV in Minneapolis MN, Pierce Co WA, Oakland and Davis, CA
August 29, 2009 Aspen WILL reconsider Instant Runoff Voting in November.
This November Aspen voters will get to vote on whether to keep or ditch instant runoff voting. Aspen voters and officials have experienced IRV first hand, the good and the bad.
Aspen's City Council has agreed to put the issue on the ballot this November- keep or ditch IRV.
August 22, 2009 Harvie Branscomb and Al Kolwicz: Guest opinion: Make computer files open to public Part of a bipartisan team of election integrity experts, we are working on ways to increase transparency and independent verification of elections. We believe that more transparency and independent verification yields more voter confidence.
August 21, 2009 Links to media- discussion of ballot release and election review The two Aspen Colorado papers and one state-wide blog have been covering the topic of the Aspen May 5 IRV election and the upcoming Aspen Election Independent Review and numerous letters to editor. Here is a perhaps not complete collection of them:
Guest Editorial August 20, 2009 in Aspen Daily News Aspen IRV Election Review The Citizens of Aspen are asking: whose election is this anyway? Does it belong to the government-- made up of the very officials who are candidates in each election? Or is it the people’s election? Apparently this question remains open in Aspen.
August 7, 2009 Slanting the exit poll of Cary's instant runoff voting election Was the exit poll of the Cary, NC instant runoff voting slanted?
July 28, 2009 Aspen's Instant Runoff Voting election to be audited by citizens group
Aspen's instant runoff voting election to be audited by independent group after several things went wrong in the town's first IRV election. Harvie Brancomb, a Colorado Verified Voting Activist and Computer Expert is leading the effort to conduct an independent audit of Aspen's recent instant runoff voting election
July 27, 2009 Marilyn Marks to Aspen City Council about May 5 2009 IRV Election Instant Runoff Voting
July 27, 2009 Harvie Branscomb to Aspen City Council about May 5 2009 IRV Election Review Instant Runoff Voting
July 23, 2009 Correcting MPR "Ritchie watching IRV in Minneapolis, other states" - North Carolina info is WRONG
MPR has some facts wrong in a recent story on Instant Runoff Voting. NPR cites Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie as saying that 10 cities in North Carolina are experimenting with IRV
July 22, 2009 Aspen to reconsider Instant Runoff Voting this November - City Council cite problems with May election ...Yesterday, Aspen Colorado City Council members agreed to put instant runoff voting on the ballot after discussing problems with the IRV election this past May. City Council members cited a lack of confidence in the voting method, the tallying, and desire to have more time to compare the field of candidates.
July 7, 2009 Instant Runoff Voting Leads To 2 Party Rule Wherever Used The claim that Instant Runoff Voting helps third parties is false. In fact, we know from studying the countries and jurisdictions that use it, IRV entrenches the two party duopoly and prevents weak third parties from gaining strength.
July 4, 2009 Instant Runoff Voting Virus Aimed at Virginia More Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) propaganda, this time aimed at the state of Virginia.
June 29, 2009 Correcting New America Foundation Instant Runoff Voting Misinfo
Note to City of San Jose: The New America Foundation misreported the popularity of instant runoff voting in North Carolina.
June 27, 2009 Instant Runoff Voting too Costly - Pierce County WA Says Ditching Would Save $600,000 IRV, Instant Runoff Voting - does NOT save money. In fact, the Pierce County Washington Auditor has recommended ditching IRV in order to save the county money. Savings would be at least $600,000.
June 22, 2009 San Francisco to put Instant Runoff Voting out of its misery? A possible repeal of Instant runoff voting was discussed by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce at a meeting last Thursday, June 18th.
June 17, 2009 Fact Checking FairVote NC blog about Instant Runoff in North Carolina FairVote NC's blog misreports the status of instant runoff voting in North Carolina. In their June 17th blog they boast of how Hendersonville North Carolina volunteered for the IRV pilot again (that bit is true) but FairVote wrongly claims that the Town of Cary is considering IRV for 2009
June 11, 2009 Minnesota Supreme Court Says IRV OK, Minnepolis to get its "free pony" now Today Minnesota's Supreme Court said OK to instant runoff voting. The MN Supreme Court turned away a "facial" challenge to Minneapolis' voter-approved Instant Runoff Voting system....Read on for news and analysis
In other words, they effectively dismissed the case because there was no actual election from which to derive facts and show that an actual disenfranchisement occured. The ruling was based on a flimsy technicality
06.07.09 Minneapolis Takes the ‘Instant’ Out of IRV Those who have been watching the long (seven months and counting!) slog toward a final resolution the Coleman-Franken election contest will not be amazed to discover that the same slow methodical approach will be applied to Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in Minneapolis. There won’t be any cutting corners for Minnesotans, unlike what was done elsewhere (Cary, NC and Aspen, CO spring to mind here!).
June 4 Aspen City Council Race---Non-monotonicity Examined On-going debate about the Aspen Colorado Instant Runoff Voting election.
June 3, 2009 Unholy Alliance of Instant Runoff Group and Internet Voting Vendor
April 1, 2009 Instant Runoff is a national issue, case presented under US Constitution
March 23, 2009 Fake Instant Runoff Voting for Hendersonville NC in 2009? No One Asked the Voters Yet
March 22, 2009 Will Instant Runoff Voting be forced on Hendersonville Voters without Public Hearing?
March 23, 2009 Instant Runoff Voting dealt setback by Minnesota Democrats DFL The most influential political party in Minnesota has done major damage to the Instant Runoff Voting cause.
September 6, 2008 Letter from San Francisco: Politicos turning against Instant Runoff and Politics are nasty as ever
September 6, 2008 Asheville North Carolina "Claims favoring Instant Runoff Voting don't hold up
August 29, 2008 North Carolina: Instant Runoff Voting is no solution, says election official who was there
August 18, 2008 Instant Runoff North Carolina: There Is No IRV Software For North Carolina's Voting Machines
August 17, 2008 Instant Runoff: Messing Up North Carolina Elections and Efforts to Reduce the Damage
July 23, 2008 Is Instant Runoff Voting Hurting Minorities in Fair Vote's Home Town?
July 17, 2008 Instant Runoff - If I Were Crazy, I'd Count Votes THIS Way Since North Carolina passed the Public Confidence in Election Law, its been harder to mess up the vote. But then came the boutique style, rube-goldberg-esque Instant Runoff Voting. A creative way to complicate voting
July 17, 2008 News and Observer: Instant runoff voting well intentioned but expensive A costly change
July 11, 2008 Instant Runoff Can Hurt Your Preferred Candidate, North Carolinians A Critical Failure of Instant Runoff Voting – hurting your preferred candidate by voting for him. Also called non-monotonicity
July 9, 08 Instant runoff update: EAC/federal agency unlikely to certify any voting systems before November and there are no federally certified IRV voting systems.
July 3, 08 San Francisco Grand Jury Report: poll workers and voters do not understand instant runoff, voting machines not yet certified.... Grand Jury Report, Our blog
June 28, 2008 Instant Runoff and Gutting North Carolina's Verified Voting Law - 8 Bad Things IRV Does to NC Public Confidence in Elections
June 28 Press Release: Instant runoff reform threatens NC's Verified Voting law
June 27, 2008 Raleigh N&O: Instant runoff voting poses problems
June 24, 2008 Instant Runoff was a disaster in Cary North Carolina
Pierce County, Washington: The Secretary of State of Washington granted "emergency" permission in May 2008 for Pierce County to use uncertified software on Seqouia machines, even though flaws were found in the WinEDS (central tabulating system). Touchscreens were certified on an emergency basis, but not the precinct optical scanners. All optical scan ballots will be hauled off to the county office to be tabulated.
St. Paul advised not to consider instant-runoff election system
Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN - Jun 18, 2008 A lawsuit filed by the Minnesota Voters Alliance, an opposition group, is pending. Minnesota's attorney general last year noted problems with instant-runoff ...
A well-advised 'whoa' on IRV Pioneer Press
June 18, 2008 Instant Runoff Voting Not Constitutional says St. Paul MN City Attorney - not obligated to place the proposed IRV charter amendment on ballot
June 17, 2008 Kathy Dopp and Experts Deconstruct Instant Runoff Voting, rebutting the rebuttal Fair Vote's "debunk" of Kathy Dopps' report on IRV is now itself - "debunked"
June 14, 2008 Instant Runoff Voting - Good or Bad for North Carolina?
June 14, 2008 Worriesome realities mar instant runoff in North Carolina
Minneapolis issued a RFP for Instant Runoff Voting equipment. The bids are due by August 1, 2008. The City of Minneapolis issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for services and equipment needed to conduct municipal elections using the method of Single Transferable Vote, sometimes known as Ranked Choice Voting or Instant Runoff Voting.
MONTPELIER, Vt.—Gov. Jim Douglas on Friday vetoed the Legislature's latest effort to limit the influence of big money in politics, as well as an instant-runoff voting bill....Douglas contended the instant-runoff voting measure would violate the principle of one person, one vote enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, by allowing voters who's first choice for an office didn't win to have their second choices counted.
Only 30000 ballots left ... Examiner.com - SAN FRANCISCO - Nov 12, 2007. Only a few San Francisco measures are still at stake as dozens of vote counters work 16-hour days “remaking” tens of thousands
...San Francisco’s ranked-choice voting system has always created problems when voters leave a choice blank. The machine spits the ballot back out and elections workers count the ballot by hand. Arnzt calls that an undervote.
This year, because undervotes are also caused by marking ballots with an inappropriate pen, Secretary of State Debra Bowen is requiring San Francisco election workers to fill out or “remake” a replica ballot by using a leaded pen that can be recognized by an optical scanner.
Five counties may use contested voting machines in February Associated Press, 12/11/07 (SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- California's secretary of state will let five counties use their electronic voting machines in the February primary election, despite her claim that the machines were sold without proper certification. Secretary of...
Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 12/05/07 Advocates for complete transparency in the inner workings of voting machines have found a sympathetic home in San Francisco - but they ran into a brick wall at City Hall on Wednesday. A Board of Supervisors committee took the city a step closer to buying...
Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 12/05/07 San Francisco officials missed a deadline Tuesday to certify the outcome of the local Nov. 6 election after a partial check found too many errors in the tally of absentee ballots run through the city's electronic voting machines. Instead, city officials...
S.F. lawsuit accuses Nebraska vote machine vendor of fraud
John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/21/07
Election Systems & Software's legal problems continued to pile up Tuesday when San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the Nebraska voting machine vendor, alleging fraud, breach of contract and a variety of other offenses. In the suit, filed in San...
Election Results Show Newsom at 74% -- Beyond Chron. Nov. 16‚ 2007 --Paul Hogarth. In the final days of the Election, Newsom told voters to "make it simple for themselves by just voting for one choice for mayor." And that's what many of his supporters did. With virtually all Election Day votes counted, the Mayor currently stands at 73.67%.
Supervisors moving ahead on buying new voting machines Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/15/07
San Francisco supervisors are moving forward with a contract to purchase new voting machines, a move that would forestall a February repeat of the slow tally of the Nov. 6 election but that isn't likely to satisfy advocates for unfettered public review of..."The thing is, the other option is so unattractive that this might smell better, but I don't think it's really going to do what we're asking," said Supervisor Tom Ammiano. "Things have to be public, not just semi-public."
Was There an Election? 11 Nov 2007 by Ray Lewis
San Francisco is the northern hub of one of the world's most demanding arenas for success in leadership, so why did Gavin Newsom have no true competitors in his renewal bid as the city’s CEO?
In 2003, Newsom was elected from a field of six candidates, all of whom had served at high levels of city government. Newsom won a spirited run-off race by fewer than four percentage points.
This year Newsom was opposed by a homeless cab driver, a florist, a music professor, two bloggers, a nudist, a showman named “Chicken John,” and a sex club owner, according to Wednesday’s edition of SF Gate...
In S.F., Prop. A pulls ahead; E and F too close to call; H failing John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/09/07 San Francisco's vote count is going faster than predicted, but state-ordered restrictions on the city's aging voting machines are still playing havoc with the tally in the mayor's race. "We're ahead of what we projected," said John Arntz, the city's
Counting S.F. ballots will take a record amount of time John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/06/07 San Francisco's election for mayor went surprisingly smoothly Tuesday, if you don't count the two weeks or more it's likely to take to tally all the ballots and come up with a final result...And because an astounding 94 percent of the absentee ballots processed by Monday had to be remade because voters didn't list three choices for mayor, it has taken a lot of time.
Election Day 2007
6 Nov 2007 by Rob
Not to denigrate the candidates, but I really doubt that any of the “alternate” candidates are capable of running a city the size of San Francisco. What would any of the alternate candidates do if they actually won the election? |
Big drop in S.F. voters may lead to record-low election turnout John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/05/07 Tuesday's mayoral election may draw a record-low turnout because there are fewer voters out there to draw from. The number of registered voters in the city has fallen by more than 9 percent since the 2003 election. Observers blame everything from a...
The mayoral campaign that hardly was, winds down in S.F. Cecilia M. Vega, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/04/07 On the final Saturday before election day in San Francisco, it almost- for a brief moment anyway - felt like there was a real race under way. James Brown's "Living in America" blared at Mayor Gavin Newsom's re-election campaign headquarters. The incumbent...
$12.6 million contract for new S.F. voting system is revived John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/02/07 A $12.6 million contract to bring a new voting system to San Francisco is back from the dead, nearly nine months after a Board of Supervisors committee refused to bring it to a vote. Although nothing has changed in the proposal, new negotiations - and the
John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22/07
It was another cold and lonely Friday evening for the candidates looking to be San Francisco's next mayor. With a chilly wind swirling across Civic Center Plaza, seven of the 11 people challenging Mayor Gavin Newsom joined again outside City Hall and tried...
Santa Clara County Delays Introducing Ranked Choice Voting Tuesday, 25 September 2007
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KCBS) -- To avoid long lines and delayed results, the county registrar announced today that ranked choice voting would not decide any contests in the Feb. 5 primary. County Registrar Jesse Durazo said technological considerations drove his decision. "The automation is not here," he said. Because the Secretary of State has not certified many electronic voting systems, voters would actually fill out two ballots rather than one if ranked choice went into effect early next year.
S.F. supervisors blamed for blocking new voting system
John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, September 21, 2007
If it takes three weeks to count the votes in this November's election, the Board of Supervisors should bear the blame, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said Thursday...
… The tough restrictions put on the use of the company's voting system in San Francisco are borderline ridiculous given how few people are likely to run into the problems with the ink, said Steven Hill, director of the political reform program of the New America Foundation.
"We're talking about people who drop the pen they're given in the voting booth, don't pick up the pen and then grab another pen without black ink," he said. "That's a pretty small group."
Bowen "is basically throwing the book at ES&S, but it's the city that's bearing the brunt of it," Hill said.
Note this comment to the article in response to Steven Hill's remarks: With the ES&S Optech Eagle system ballots marked with lighter ink can be mis-read by the scanner. Mr. Hill should consider that people who want to cause problems with other voters' ballots can and will switch the pens on purpose, even leaving behind pens that look exactly like the "official" Eagle compatible pens? Should we assume that Mr. Hill is as unaware and foolish as the voters he laughs off, or is he purposely trying to disguise the real and relevant bad marker security threat that comes from cutting corners by using obsolete optical scanner heads? ....
S.F. election outcome won't be known for weeks
John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 09/19/07
San Francisco's election night will end early on Nov. 6, but thanks to a new ruling by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, it could be weeks before voters know who won. "We'll probably be able to release the absentee ballot results at 8:30 p.m., and then...
When Newsom gets a free pass for 4 more years, nobody wins
C.W. Nevius, San Francisco Chronicle, 09/06/07
It is the week after Labor Day, the traditional start of the election season. Except in San Francisco. We're not having an election. Instead we're awarding the mayor's office to incumbent Gavin Newsom by default. The filing date to run for mayor came and...
No one is running against S.F. district attorney in fall election
Demian Bulwa, San Francisco Chronicle, 08/16/07
San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris collected more than $500,000 from donors for her re-election effort, lined up high-profile endorsements and launched a campaign Web site. Then the clock at the Department of Elections struck 5 p.m. ... Jim Ross, a political consultant who ran Newsom's 2003 campaign, said ranked-choice balloting might have discouraged challengers to Harris. Promoted by its advocates as a boon to underfunded candidates hoping to avoid a costly runoff, ranked-choice voting actually strengthens incumbents, Ross said.
Voters pay less attention to second and third selections than the top slot and often leave them blank, Ross said. The resulting under-vote means incumbents can prevail with less than the 50 percent-plus-one that they once needed to avoid a runoff.
SAN FRANCISCO - Officials scurry to find solution to longtime vote machine problem
John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 07/25/07
Election officials in San Francisco and Sacramento are scrambling to find a way to keep the city from having to count more than 200,000 ballots by hand this November, a nightmare process that could drag on for weeks. California Secretary of State Debra...
2007. IRV software relies upon complex algorithms that could be faulty without anyone realizing it. San Francisco used software that had a flawed algorithm for several years before it was detected by a review of the voting machines:
California's former SOS McPherson letter to the Board of Supervisors describes the anomaly in the RCV algorithm,in a report dated June 20, 2007. .The Secretary of State’s staff report from 2006 explains the issues experienced during testing which caused Secretary McPherson to approve one-time use of the system. Some of these issues are noted below:
...An anomaly in the RCV algorithm concerning the elimination of the lowest ranking candidates who are tied.
Now, how did this guy get elected?
John Diaz, San Francisco Chronicle, 06/10/07
IN RECENT years, San Francisco voters have set up systems promising to encourage the election of citizen-politicians from the neighborhoods and to raise voter participation and the prospects that our elected leaders arrive in office with a "mandate." So...
SAN FRANCISCO - Newsom faces few hurdles to re-election - Mayor hard to beat: Setbacks can't seem to dim his luster
Phillip Matier, San Francisco Chronicle, 06/03/07
Despite the personal scandals, infighting with the Board of Supervisors and criticism that his administration is all show, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has three very big numbers in his back pocket that will make unseating him one of the toughest...
Supervisor's plans marred by threat of fall from grace
John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, 05/27/07
When Ed Jew won his nail-biter of an election for San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in November, it capped a decadelong effort by the Chinatown florist to become a major player in the hurly-burly world of the city's ethnic politics. Less than six months...
SAN FRANCISCO - Questions mount for Sunset supervisor
Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 05/20/07
San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew, the target of an FBI investigation into $40,000 he said he accepted from businessmen facing city permit problems, received a vote of confidence Saturday from supporters who say he is a man of character. But within hours of...
SAN FRANCISCO - Vote machines subpar, official warns - Ink scanners faulty -- ballot tally may have to be by hand
Wyatt Buchanan, San Francisco Chronicle, 05/18/07
San Francisco's chief of elections has warned city officials that ballots cast in the November election may have to be counted by hand because voting machines do not meet standards set by California's secretary of state. In a letter to the mayor and Board...
SAN FRANCISCO / Supes want to know how voting machines count ...
02/22/07
Most of San Francisco's current voting machines use an optical scan to read ... The city's Department of Elections negotiated a contract with Sequoia in ...
Runoff rule, fund limits add twist to S.F. election - Despite scandal, Newsom could benefit from changes
Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle, 02/10/07
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's self-inflicted political wounds might draw more challengers into November's mayoral race, but the city's new public financing program and instant runoff voting are likely to have more effect on who gets in and when -- and...
S.F. supes: Ed Jew in District 4; Daly slips in - Second-choice votes boost Sunset activist over initial leader
Charlie Goodyear, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/11/06
Ed Jew, a neighborhood activist whose door-to-door campaigning proved persuasive to voters, came from behind to win a closely fought race for supervisor in San Francisco's Sunset District, according to updated election results released Friday. Jew secured...
RCV Results Posted
Eve Batey, SF Gate, 11/10/06
The San Francisco Board of Elections has posted the ranked choice voting results for Districts Four and Six (Districts Two, Eight, and 10 had clear majority leaders, thus going to RCV was unnecessary). And the leaders? In District Four, Ed Jew. Charlie...
ELECTION 2006 - Ranked-choice tally is crucial in district four
Charlie Goodyear, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/09/06
San Francisco's biggest electoral surprise in the race for supervisor in District Four on Tuesday was the poor showing by Doug Chan, a candidate who raised a large amount of cash and enjoyed Mayor Gavin Newsom's support but failed to connect with voters.
Uncounted Ballots in SF Unlikely to Change a Thing Chuck Finnie, SF Gate, 11/08/06
SF elections chief John Arntz tells The Chronicle's Robert Selna that there are 69,300 city ballots that still need to be counted as of today -- 60,000 of which mostly are of the absentee variety delivered by voters to polling stations on election day and...
Bay Area prefers status quo Erin Allday, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/07/06
Political change swept the nation Tuesday but skipped the Bay Area, where Democrats were already the status quo. Three of the four San Francisco Board of Supervisors incumbents handily won their races, and the fourth, Chris Daly in District 6, had a...
CAMPAIGN 2006: 5 Days to Go - Results in S.F. supes' races might lag Charlie Goodyear, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/02/06
Definitive results in San Francisco supervisor races might not be available for several days after next Tuesday's election if officials are forced to retabulate thousands of ballots to determine winners under the city's ranked-choice voting system. John...
VOTER'S GUIDE TO THE NOV. 7 ELECTION - San Francisco Board of Supervisors
San Francisco Chronicle, 10/29/06
There are elections in five of San Francisco's supervisorial districts, with incumbents seeking re-election in Districts Two, Six, Eight and 10 and one race for an open seat in District Four. Under the city's election system for local races, voters rank...
Four supervisors, at least 31 foes to face off July 25, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - Five seats, mayor’s coalition on the line; ranked-choice voting gives incumbents lift
Ranked-choice voting gives incumbents a “tremendous advantage,” according to San Francisco-based political consultant Eric Jaye. A challenger can get more votes than the incumbent, but if the seated official gets more second- and third-rank votes, they can still win the race.
“[Before ranked-choice voting,] all you had to do is push an incumbent into a runoff, then you’d have equality,” Jaye said. “Now, you don’t just have to make the incumbent the second choice, you have to make them the fourth choice.”
Which is why political pundits say one of the main races to watch is the one with no incumbent. In District 4, Fiona Ma, who won the Democratic nomination in the 12th Assembly District last month, is vacating the board.
03/21/06
Elections officer approves Sequoia voting machines from Oakland Tribune in Array ... But it is likely Santa Clara and San Francisco counties will have the ...
Sunday, January 09, 2005. Programming problems. Despite promise, ranked-choice voting gets fouled up in California. Ranked-choice voting is the only sane voting system around: it's an instant runoff election that opens up the possibility of third-party competition for major elections.
Unfortunately, in an example that proves bureaucrats hardly ever have the brains to do anything right, the San Francisco Department of Elections muffed this one up. Apparently, their programmers forgot how to count. Someone needs to teach them the old "fingers and toes" method, apparently. News Target article
December 31, 2004 Claims of minority disenfranchisement:
But David Lee from the Chinese American Voter Education Committee argues that the system disenfranchised minority voters. The organization released a poll saying that only 49 percent of Chinese-speaking voters found the system "easy to use." San Francisco Examiner article
November 16, 2004 Don't Toss Out System Yet - Leader of Voter Ed Group suggests scrapping ranked choice voting:
LAST WEEK, THE head of a San Francisco voter-education group said he was considering options including working to repeal The City's new ranked-choice voting system because the system was too difficult for Chinese-speaking voters.
In RCV -- used to select city supervisors for the first time Nov. 2 --
voters may list three candidates for supervisor in order of preference,eliminating the need for a separate runoff election.
The Chinese American Voter Education Committee's interest in educating and protecting voters whose first language is not English is well placed. These voters are as important as any others, and making sure they understand their rights and the mechanisms by which they cast their votes is a good goal. Unfortunately, when it comes to the idea of potentially filing suit or attempting to repeal ranked-choice voting at the ballot box CAVEC's aim is off the mark and premature. The Examiner: Article
November 11, 2004 Voting Group says IRV esp difficult for minority group.
A voter education group charged Wednesday that The City's new voting system was especially difficult for Chinese-speaking citizens but concluded it may take more than one election to see if those citizens are being disenfranchised. San Francisco Examiner article
November 4, 2004. Machines fail to count votes correctly for second and third votes.
Ranked-choice results delayed due to glitches.
The voting system had cleared state and federal testing, and Arntz said the failure to get a proper tally of second and third votes was a surprise.
"I think we can fix this," Arntz said. "A hand count is something I really don't want to do..."
Lillian Sing, who came in second in District 1, said the delay leads her to question the count.
"The system is completely untrustworthy and therefore nothing is accurate as far as I'm concerned," she said...
"The department also has yet to count and release tallies for as many as 60,000 absentee and provisional ballots from Tuesday's election. Arntz said he plans to release those tallies
daily over the next two weeks, and that he's confident the ranked-choice result will be complete and accurate before the statutory deadline at the end of the month."
Take a look at some of the findings in these studies of San Francisco’s 2004 & 2005 IRV election, conducted by the Public Research Institute at San Francisco State University:
An Assessment of Ranked-Choice Voting in the San Francisco 2004 Election
SUMMARY
The majority of voters appear to have made the transition to Ranked-Choice Voting with little problem: about seven out of eight we surveyed said that, overall, they understood it "fairly well" or "perfectly well." However, that leaves one in eight who expressed some lack of understanding.
…We found differences across racial and ethnic groups in regard to their prior knowledge of RCV, their overall understanding, and their propensity to rank candidates on the ballot.
Non-Hispanic Whites and Asian Americans came to the polls more aware of RCV than others. Whites and Asians also reported a higher level of overall understanding than other groups.
African Americans reported less understanding than other racial/ethnic groups, a difference that grows once other influences are considered.
2005 was worse for voters than 2004:
An Assessment of Ranked-Choice Voting in the San Francisco 2005 Election
IRV was re-named Ranked-Choice Voting because it can take days or weeks to get the results.
Prior Knowledge of Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV)
- A narrow majority of voters surveyed (54%) knew before voting that they would be asked to rank candidates for City Treasurer and Assessor in the 2005 election.
- The proportion of voters who had prior knowledge of RCV was lower in 2005 (54%) than in the 2004 election for the Board of Supervisors (67%).
- Those with lower rates of prior knowledge tended to be those who were less educated, reported having lower incomes, and spoke a primary language other than Spanish.
- African Americans were considerably less likely than other racial and ethnic groups (41.9%) to know they would be ranking their choices for these offices.
-The majority of voters reported ranking three candidates in the race for City Treasurer (57%), while 33% reported selecting only one candidate.*
*That means that in the event the first choice does not win, 33% do not participate in the "run-off".
See this analysis of "Spoilage and Error Rates with Range Voting versus other Voting Systems" from http://rangevoting.org/SPRates.htm Valid votes, overvotes and undervotes (also known as DROP-OFF) in IRV races:
Overvote means a voter selected two or more candidates for the same office. Undervote/drop-off means voter selected no candidate for that race. In either IRV or plurality voting, undervoting has the same effect as not voting at all in that race.
So from this we see that the overvote error rates in San Francisco ranged from 3 to 11 times higher with IRV than with plurality voting, typically 7 times higher. (If double-ranking a non-top candidate in IRV were also considered – we haven't – then IRV overvote error rates would have been even higher.) And this conclusion is fully statistically significant.
Meanwhile, the undervotes and dropoffs probably mostly were "intentional" rather than "errors," but anyhow were comparable for both Plurality and IRV.
2004. Touch screens were recommended to San Francisco: From the San Francisco Dept of Elections report on IRV in 2004. ES&S realized that its current paper ballot system could not provide voters the opportunity to rank all candidates that qualified for the ballot. For instance, if 22 candidates qualified for one contest, the system could not accommodate voters making 22 selections in order of their preference among the candidates. Touch-screen systems could most likely accommodate the ranking of all candidates.... For absentee voting, however, the formatting for the paper ballots for the current optical scan system limits the number of choices. The RCV Charter amendment allows for voters to have no less than three selections for an RCV contest if it is not technically feasible for the system to allow for voters to rank all of the candidates on the ballot. Thus, the City agreed to have its system modified to allow voters three rankings among the qualified candidates appearing on the RCV ballot.
2003. The Los Angeles Voter Empowerment Circle recommended touch screen voting machines for IRV to the state of California in 2003: "touch screen machines for DRE systems are also better able to ccommodate alternative voting methods such as Instant Runoff Voting. We therefore believe that DRE systems are preferable to paper-based systems, such as punch cards or optical scans.
Lawsuit to Seek IRV in San Francisco in 2003 (from FairVote website) On August 11, 2003, a diverse coalition of citizen groups and San Francisco voters -- including the Congress of California Seniors, Chinese Progressive Association, San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO, California PIRG, Center for Voting and Democracy, Enrique Asis, Gwenn Craig, Arthur Chang, and Tracy Baxter - filed a lawsuit on August 11, 2003 in State Superior Court against the SF Elections Commission, Department of Elections, and the Director of Elections for failure to implement the law of San Francisco which mandates instant runoff voting.
The Real Story: Seventeen Months of Fumbling and Bumbling by the SF Department of Elections and Elections Commission Timlines, actions, inaction and poor decisions related to IRV implementation (FairVote attacks election officials for not being able to easily implement IRV. Also FairVote pushes against election transparency and promotes both central counting of the votes or touchscreen voting machines just so that IRV can quickly be implemented.
July 18, 2003 Smearing for IRV
...IRV supporters are conducting a nasty campaign to smear the Chinese American Voters Education Committee, a group concerned about IRV’s potential to confuse and disenfranchise more than 15,000 voters who use Chinese-language ballots.
