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TH AY CITIZN

When 0.45% of Total Voter Can Tranlate to Victor

By SCOTT JAMES

LOG IN

DEC. 30, 2010

Scott James writes a column for The Bay Citizen.

If the new San Francisco Board of Supervisors sworn in Jan. 8 is
anything like its predecessor, there will be a time when an unpopular
decision will have citizens asking, Who picked these people?
The answer will be: hardly anyone.
A record 8 of 11 supervisors on the new board have an interesting
distinction: They were not the first choices of a majority of voters, but
prevailed in the citys ranked-choice voting system.
They also come to power with some of the lowest votes per candidate in
city history.
These outcomes are the result of a confluence of election changes
enacted in the past decade that proponents said would encourage
candidate diversity and garner higher turnout than the sleepy
December runoff elections of the past.
But some of this Novembers winners received even fewer votes than
before the system was changed. This has raised concern about public
support for a board facing huge challenges, including a $380 million
budget gap and the selection of a new mayor. Now some newly elected
supervisors are out courting voters they failed to persuade at the polls.
Several factors including ranked-choice voting, which is an instant
runoff system the low turnout of 61 percent and district elections with
many candidates mean that, individually, supervisors received the
support of a tiny fraction of overall residents compared with 1980 to
1998, when board members ran citywide.
How small? Several supervisors were the first choice of only 2 percent
or less of the citys total voters.
Scott Weiner, the newly elected supervisor in District 8 (The
Castro/Noe Valley) who received only 42 percent of first-choice votes
but still won, is questioning the process, especially in districts with
many candidates.
It doesnt work well when you have 21 on the ballot, Mr. Weiner said,
as was the case in District 10 (The Bayview, Hunters Point), where

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Malia Cohen prevailed. Ms. Cohen, who by some accounts is the swing
vote in selecting a new mayor, received 2,083 first-choice votes,
narrowly placing third. But she won after receiving more second- and
third-choice votes, although she was not selected at all on 79 percent of
ballots cast in the district.
In 1998, before changes in election procedures started, supervisors
needed 80,000 to 120,000 first-place votes to prevail. Ms. Cohen won
with a hair over 2,000 first-place votes 0.45 percent of San
Franciscos 466,414 registered voters.
Using the same math, other winners this year did not fare much better:
Mark Farrell, 2 percent in District 2 (Pacific Heights, Marina) Jane
Kim, 1.4 percent in District 6 (SoMa) and Mr. Weiner, 3.1 percent.
Walking through the Castro on a recent drizzly Saturday, Mr. Weiner
talked about the difficulties the city faces. He noted the plethora of
empty storefronts vacancies that have grown since the closing of
election headquarters that had temporarily filled several spaces, with
more emptiness ahead as holiday pop-up stores expire.
Voters want us to focus on the basics of running the city, like the
economy and public transit, he said.
Since winning in the instant runoff, Mr. Weiner has been meeting with
those who preferred his opponents. Ive been actively engaging those
who did not support me, he said.
Ms. Cohen, a fourth-generation San Franciscan, has had similar
meetings and said she planned to hold office hours in cafes and
libraries to earn the support of those who did not support me.
Running for office is like dating, she said, and now were married.
Mr. Farrell in District 2 said that the election had raised questions
about ranked-choice voting, but that the ones who ultimately prevailed
are the ones who put out the most effort. Additional campaigning was
crucial to obtain those key second-choice votes, he noted.
So does vote size really matter?
Bill Ambrunn, a former chief of staff for Supervisor Susan Leal who
worked on several citywide campaigns in the 1990s, said that when
supervisors received more than 100,000 votes, there was a certain
gravitas to that.
Todays comparatively small constituencies, Mr. Ambrunn said, could
undermine the board. I dont see how this is going to help, he added.
Steven Hill, one of the main advocates of the election changes, said the
system has worked pretty darn well, resulting in more minority
officeholders and less reliance on the old political machine.
As for the low numbers that elected the victors, Mr. Hill said some past
runoffs had such poor turnout that they also produced low-vote
victories.
There are pros and cons to every system, he said.

jame@acitizen.org

A verion of thi article appear in print on Decemer 31, 2010, on page A19A of the National edition with the
headline: When 0.45% of Total Voter Can Tranlate to Victor. Order Reprint | Toda' Paper | Sucrie

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