The Governor currently has a bill sitting on his desk that has not received a single Republican vote.
(Note: I stand corrected. Senator Tom McClintock voted for this bill. See vote here.)
When looking at the bill analysis it is easy to understand why. It is hard to agree with the City of Davis (I almost never do), Common Cause, Cal PIRG, and the California Democratic Party.
Despite the unsavory cast of characters supporting it (not including McClintock), the bill has merit. AB 1294 allows general law cities and counties to be able to use ranked voting (RV) systems if it passes by local initiative.
Local Control
I actually believe in local control. As a former Mayor and current County Supervisor I think we even need to let cities and counties run their own systems. We don’t need Senator Battin, Assemblyman Smyth, Speaker Nunez or anyone else in Sacramento telling us what is good for Woodland.
Cities and counties should be able to be wrong. The City of San Diego has been a perfect example of that recently. They are wrong on same sex marriage but they should have the freedom to be wrong.
With numerous Republican legislators coming from local government I am surprised that not a single one of them would allow general law cities this freedom.
This is the way we run conventions
For those of you that long for a good convention fight you would love choice voting. It would be like having an instant convention. Building a coalition with other candidates would need to be part of any campaign strategy.
Conservatives should want this
This bill does not apply to legislative elections but consider this.
Choice voting would allow multiple conservative candidates to seek office without creating an opportunity for some third or fourth tier candidate from sneaking in with a divided field.
Let me give you a hypothetical. Say Congressman Jones is plagued with ethical problems. He is the first choice of about 35% of the electorate out of loyalty but the last choice of the rest of the party. State Legislator Smith and four other candidates divide the remaining 65% fairly evenly.
Who wins the primary under the current system? The flawed Congressman wins the primary and then loses the seat in November even with millions of dollars in party money.
Who wins with choice voting? Probably a legislator that will easily win the general election without needing to use scarce party resources.
Too complicated?
If we cause voters to actually think that should be ok. Those that argue choice voting is too complicated are the same people that put multi-billion dollar bonds and difficult public policy choices on the ballot all the time. If we trust the voters with eminent domain and state financing we should be able to trust them with ordering their candidate choices.
You can read more about ranked voting here.
October 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
Matt, you may be right and I may even support it myself, but it is something that takes a lot more study than most supporters have given it.
Ranked voting is used in the countries of Australia, India and several smaller islands for elections and has been reasonably successful. It is also used in the city of Cambridge Massachussets and lately in San Francisco. There are many arguments in it’s favor, most of which are listed on the link you included.
However, there is also a negative history that deserves to be mentioned. Many cities tried this system in the 1930’s and got rid of it. The reason was that in the ranking they would often wind up with obscure candidates getting elected, sometimes to important positions. For example in New York City when they tried the system, they wound up with two members of the American Communist Party being elected to the City Council.
How could such a thing happen. Very simple. To make an exagerated hypothetical situation, take a close election like the one between Gore and Bush in 2000. Imagine that all of the supporters of both candidates picked Ralph Nader as their second choice so as not to help their main opponent. Guess what? Nader in that scenario would have been elected President.
Obviously in the real world that never would have happened, but in several races with ranked preferences, similar things have happened and that has led to many jurisdictions dropping the system. Some people would also argue that in leading to less competitive elections, ranked voting helps the special interests by cutting down on criticism’s of incumbents. You can take that as a positive or negative depending on what you think about the concept, but it should be considered in evaluating it.
I shouldn’t just harp on the negatives, because there are some very strong positives to the system (beyond the economic ones) and it probably deserves study. However, I have noticed an ongoing belief by people in this country that anything new, especially if it is being used in a Westernized country is automatically thought of by some as an improvement over our system and in point of fact, we have less of a history of political corruption than any other country in the world, so I think change should be looked at carefully. JMO!
October 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
By the way, my analogy above is not completely accurate in the sense that candidates are removed from the bottom after each round of voting which would have eliminated Nader in the scenario mentioned, but I have found that to be the easiest explanation of the problems with the system so I still use that analogy.
What actually happens time and again with the system is that so many voters will intentionally put the leading candidate from the opposite party at the bottom of their rankings in a multi party race that minor party candidates will wind up winning significant numbers of elections, i.e. the example of communist party city councilmembers in New York City.
Now all systems have their faults and ours elected Steve Rocco to the school board and many others from the fringe have held office in down ballot seats. But based on past history, the number will increase dramatically under this system. The reason that fact hasn’t caused an uproar overseas where they use this system has to do with the fact that most countries use a parliamentary system where they are voting for the party, not the man and there are more restraints on the damage an individual member can do without the support of their party and also there are people from other parties with the responsibility of making sure that jurisdictions not represented by their party still get their fair share of services. In our system where the idea is you vote for the individual and that person is charged with representing a specific area, you have a much different situation and based on history, a much greater chance for mischief.
October 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
We’ve had Ranked Choice Voting, aka Instant Runoff Voting, in San Francisco since 2002. It was championed by the Green Party to elect “progressives.” It worked. It has given us the worst group of Supervisors ever, and we’ve had some doozies. The Supervisor who represents the district I live in got only 41.09% of the first place votes. After 4 RCV rounds and the ballots of 4781 voters were thrown out, he still has only 46% of the original vote although RCV calls it 54%.
If a voter does not chose one of the top 3 vote getters their ballot is thrown out. They have no say in the final determination as they would if there was a run-off. Its very possible that the Marxist who won would have lost if there was a run-off in this election.
Don’t be fooled. RCV helps incumbents and those who could not be elected under a fair system.
October 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
Matt:
Look at our more recent history in San Francisco. Ranked Choice Voting gave the city Ed Jew, who was a dark horse. Negative campagning seems to help the 2nd tier.
Jew who absolutely surprised everyone, including himself, was never properly vetted to the public. Perhaps his non residency might have been discovered had he merely survived a traditional primary. Instead, voters with already limited information, may vote for unknown candidates, then get surprised when no one first candidate gets indicted.
See…
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:3jjtGMqlDt4J:www.beyondchron.org/articles/Why_Ed_Jew_Won_and_What_it_Means_3902.html+supervisor+jew+choice+voting&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Lets be cautious of the unintented consequences. Still, I would not oppose localities being permitted to embrace RCV. They will certainly get stranger office holders.
Shawn Steel
October 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
The Utah Republican Party has successfully used ranked-choice voting at its past two conventions to elect party officers and nominate county, state, and federal candidates.
See: http://www.lputah.org/node/55
If choice voting was used for multiple-seat legislative elections it would make it far more difficult for democrats to gerrymander districts in their favor.
Remember: This bill gives cities local control over their election system. It by no means imposes choice voting on all cities.
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
Matt:
I agree: the decision on how to elect a City Council should be made by the City, not dictated by Sacramento.
This does not mean that I support or oppose ranked-choice voting, simply that Sacramento should not be dictating to local voters.
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
Shawn Steel: “Ranked Choice Voting gave the city Ed Jew, who was a dark horse.”
Even if it were true that ranked choice voting favors dark horse candidates (it’s not), Ed Jew would be a poor example of the point.
First, the questions about Jew’s residency were publicized four years earlier, when he ran unsuccessfully for the same seat. By 2006, this was old news.
Jew’s victory his second time out did, apparently, surprise the political establishment in San Francisco, but I’ll bet it didn’t surprise that many rank and file voters in the district. He got elected the traditional way — by being known and liked by people in the neighborhoods. He was an outsider only from the point of view of the various political factions that run the city. He was not an outsider on the streets of his district. This is ironic in view of the fact that he may not actually live there, but it is so.
The most important fact about Jew and ranked choice voting is that he would have won a two-person runoff against Ron Dudum. Dudum has been quoted several times saying the opposite, but he’s almost certainly wrong. If he’s right it’s only because the drastic drop in turnout for the second round would have favored him over Jew. By holding the runoff instantly instead of weeks later, RCV made the final decision at a lot less cost.
Steel and I agree on one thing: local communities should have a choice of voting methods.
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
Howard Epstein: “If a voter does not chose one of the top 3 vote getters their ballot is thrown out.”
This is not true as stated. It is true that a ballot is exhausted if and when all of the voter’s choices are eliminated.
The design of San Francisco’s voting machines limits voters to three choices, regardless of the number of candidates. This accounts for some of the exhausted ballots in Epstein’s example. Both AB 1294 and the San Francisco charter allow this restriction, but only when necessary because of equipment limitations. It’s not part of the method.
Of the the 4,781 ballots that Epstein says were “thrown out”, 1,875 voters didn’t vote at all in this 2004 District 1 supervisor race. The number of ballots not included in the fourth round that did indicate at least one choice was actually 2,847, so the winner’s fourth round votes were 49% of the first round total rather than 46%.
But this is a quibble. The main point is that some folks didn’t like either of the two finalists well enough to rank one of them third or higher. It’s true that they would get to choose between the two evils (in their eyes) in a separate runoff — if they turn out to vote in the runoff. Many would have been able to choose in the RCV election had the equipment allowed more choices.
October 4th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Tom Kaptain: “Some people would also argue that in leading to less competitive elections, ranked voting helps the special interests by cutting down on criticism of incumbents.”
There is zero evidence that ranked voting reduces the number of viable candidates or favors incumbents. I don’t see any logic to support these views either. I think ranked voting actually increases electoral competition.
Kaptain himself undermines this point by dwelling on small political parties. He writes: “What actually happens time and again with the system is that so many voters will intentionally put the leading candidate from the opposite party at the bottom of their rankings in a multi party race that minor party candidates will wind up winning significant numbers of elections …”
Ranking the candidates of the other major party last means that, if you can’t have the candidate of your own major party, then you prefer one of the small parties to the other major one. Makes sense to me. Certainly there are Republicans who would prefer some Libertarians to most Democrats on a lot of issues, other Republicans who would sometimes prefer an American Independent to a Democrat, as well as Republicans who would prefer a moderate Democrat to the candidates typically fielded by either small party.
Contrary to Epstein’s portrayal, such voters are not trying to help Republican candidates by burying their Democratic opponents, which would make the election of small party candidates an unintended consequence of tactical voting. This sort of tactical thinking just doesn’t work in ranked voting elections — one of the method’s strengths.
In choice voting elections, small parties win seats once they become large enough to earn them. They don’t win seats by flying under the radar, as Epstein tries to suggest. The meaning of “large enough” depends directly on the number of open seats being filled.
AB 1294 allows choice voting for general law city councils, which can have up to 9 members elected to staggered terms. The largest number that can be elected at once is 5. This means the smallest slate that can win would have to get 17% of the vote. In a typical small city with a 5 member council, the “threshold”, as the required percentage is called, would alternate between 25% and 33%. This can insure that both of the two largest groups in the community have representation and prevent one side from getting all the seats — which can happen under the current at-large plurality method. It cannot elect anyone who doesn’t have substantial support.
If you want smaller groups to have representation, you need to add more seats to the legislative body. That’s a separate discussion.