[EM] Analysis Finds Incorrect Use of Ranked-Choice Voting in San Francisco

[Ralph Suter]

Analysis Finds Incorrect Use of Ranked-Choice Voting

By SHANE SHIFFLETT
Published: December 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/us/analysis-finds-incorrect-use-of-ranked-choice-voting.html

The results are in: San Francisco voters have trouble with ranked-choice 
elections.

Despite a $300,000 educational campaign leading up to last month’s 
elections, including a new smiley-face mascot, publicity events, and 
advertising on buses and in newspapers, only one-third of voters on Nov. 
8 filled out all three choices in all three races, according to an 
analysis released this week by the University of San Francisco.

Under the city’s system, voters were asked to rank their top three 
choices for mayor, sheriff and district attorney.

Perhaps the analysis’ most troubling finding is that 9 percent of 
voters, mostly in Chinatown and southeastern neighborhoods like the 
Bayview, marked only one choice for each office, either because they 
considered only one candidate suitable or because they did not know how 
to fill out their ballot correctly.

“Some people just prefer to rank one,” said Corey Cook, a political 
science professor at the university who wrote the report with David 
Latterman. “But the geographic component suggests it’s more systematic.”

Although Edwin M. Lee did not receive a majority of first-place votes, 
he became the city’s first elected Chinese-American mayor based on the 
ranked-choice system, which was first used in San Francisco in 2004.

Mr. Latterman, an associate director of the Leo T. McCarthy Center for 
Public Service and the Common Good at U.S.F., said voters in 
neighborhoods with large black or Asian populations tended to vote for 
different candidates than residents in other parts of the city. But the 
Nov. 8 election was the first time researchers saw a geographic or 
perhaps ethnic difference in how people used ranked-choice voting.

The findings indicate one of two things, Mr. Latterman said: Either 
campaigns tried to manipulate the results by focusing on specific groups 
of people or there is not a clear understanding of how to use the system.

A recent Bay Citizen analysis revealed that 16 percent of ballots in the 
mayoral race — those of more than 31,500 people — were filled out 
correctly but were discarded when all of their chosen candidates were 
eliminated from the race. San Francisco does not allow voters to rank 
all the candidates on the ballot.

In June, a voting task force created by the Board of Supervisors 
recommended that the Department of Elections consider allowing voters to 
rank all the candidates to avoid this issue.

The panel urged the department to work with city supervisors to increase 
voter education.

Hence the mascot. “We made the conscious decision to have an image of a 
correctly marked ballot and to have a smiley face to draw people’s 
attention,” said John Arntz, the director of the Department of Elections.

When asked whether ranked-choice voting has worked well for San 
Francisco, Mr. Arntz said, “I guess it depends if your candidate wins or 
not.”

sshifflett at baycitizen.org

A version of this article appeared in print on December 2, 2011, on page 
A25A of the National edition with the headline: Analysis Finds Incorrect 
Use Of Ranked-Choice Voting.