US election info?

[Steve Eppley]

Tom R asked:
>I'm looking for some news about two particular results from
>the recent US elections.
>
>  Did Sonny Bono retain his Congressional seat in California?

Yes, with 57% of the vote.

>  Did San Francisco's STV proportional representation referendum pass?

No.  I think it polled about 35%.  

There was a rival proposal on the ballot, which I think passed, and
which I think calls for "vote for only one" single-winner districts.
(If I'm correct, the old system was an at-large "majority wins all"
system where each voter votes for N candidates to fill N seats.  If
51% of the voters pick the same candidates, they win all the seats.)

No one proposed using preference voting in single-winner districts,
which may be considered a lesser evil when STV is on the ballot. 
But STV lost and the greater evil won. 

---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)