Friday, December 4, 2009
BREAKING NEWS: Instant Runoff Voting Coming to Oakland
Politics / People Robert Gammon — Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 5:25 PM
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen officially certified Alameda County’s new voting system this afternoon, thereby allowing Oakland to hold only one election next year — in November. The election would feature instant-runoff voting, also known as ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank their top choices in an election, and thus eliminate the need for a costly primary. A super majority of Oakland voters approved instant-runoff voting in 2006 with 69 percent of the vote. San Francisco has been using the system for several years.
Alameda County Registrar Dave MacDonald said the certification means the county “is ready to go now” and fully able to conduct an instant-runoff voting election on behalf of Oakland, along with Berkeley and San Leandro, next year. The Oakland City Council plans to take up the issue in January, but it should be no more than a formality, because city law requires the city to use instant-runoff voting once MacDonald declares that he’s ready.
Mayoral candidate Don Perata had been lobbying behind the scenes to delay the new system, claiming that it’s complicated and that seniors and non-English speakers would be confused by it. The former state senator also would greatly benefit from having two elections because he is a prodigious fund-raiser and has strong name recognition.
Councilwoman Jean Quan, by contrast, would likely benefit from one election in November because it would give her more time to raise funds, and would give voters more time to get to know her. In addition, Perata’s argument about voter confusion was undermined by the success of instant-runoff voting in San Francisco.
Bowen’s office had been expected to certify the new system for Alameda County earlier this fall. But her office, Alameda County, San Francisco, and voting-software vendor, Sequoia, had to iron out a few minor glitches in the system first. The problems, if left unfixed, would have affected disabled Chinese-language speaking voters and the hearing impaired. The glitch didn’t affect the accuracy of the vote counts, but limited the voters’ ability to review his or her vote. Bowen’s office said Friday that they had solved the problems to her satisfaction.
However, her office also said that Alameda County must conduct a thorough educational outreach campaign and issued benchmarks for the county and city to meet. Some Oakland City Councilmembers have raised concerns about whether the city can finance such an educational campaign. But that shouldn’t be an issue, as long as the council decides not to go ahead with a June election, which could cost about $800,000. The money saved from not having that election will easily pay for an extensive outreach campaign.
Comments (9)
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San Francisco-The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.
If only they had instant runoff voting. Oh wait they DO http://twi.cc/YPI1
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The comments above have been generally accurate. Joyce McCloy, however, tries to use data to make a cause and effect argument rather than a coincidence or correlational argument. Rob Ritchie explains the meaning of the data and voila it is NOT cause and effect after all. Minneapolis did have factors that accounted for low turnout, so no one with any understanding of such data can pin that on RCV. As for Don Perata, it is technically correct that he was apparently upfront about his disdain for IRV or RCV and wrote important people on somewhat official looking stationary. His political power may be all that is necessary to effect changes he desires. Holding a press conference or calling for a meeting with proponents of the measure would have been true transparency.
However, Mr. Perata still has some ability to "muddy the waters" of understanding of what RCV is and is not. Some people see his interests as tied to theirs. He is after all, running for Mayor next year. The idea that no education plan exists is simply a "red herring." One need only look at the website of the Alameda Registrar of voters for that information. Therefore it is important to look at what's in it for him when trying to understand his motivation at this point. And as others have already stated, it is in his best interests to run in a June primary and if he doesn't win outright to run again in November. He has the resources to do so. Challengers may not be so lucky. The other point is that turnout in June is notoriously low, always a plus for a well known and well funded candidate.
Debra Bowen has certified the software for 2010. There is no legal justification for delaying the voter's intent. Any more delaying is illegal and a sure sign of political "skullduggery."
Thanks for the good update article on IRV implementation. It is unfortunate that along with the practical problems of implementing IRV in Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro in line with the will of the people, we have a couple of local politicians making misrepresentations about IRV on blogs, in letters to elected and appointed officials, etc. Folks should ask themselves why these guys are so concerned about getting IRV implemented.
Judy Cox
Joyce McCloy here. Since Rob Richie has misrepresented my position, let me clear it up.
Here's my view on how IRV is a threat to democracy, posted on the home page of my website:
"IRV violates core principles of election integrity, whether using optical scan voting systems or Direct Record/Touchscreen machines. IRV increases reliance on more complex technology, making audits and recounts more prohibitive, further eroding election transparency. Because IRV is not additive, no matter what voting system is used, the ballots, (electronic or optical scan) have to be hauled away from where they are cast to a central location to be counted. This increases the chance of fraud or lost votes. The tallying software utilizes a complex algorithm that makes the process even more opaque." http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/
I'm not alone.
Liberal Blogger Brad Friedman calls Instant runoff voting a Virus. On his blog he says: "Joins 'Internet Voting' and 'Vote-by-Mail' schemes as the latest bad ideas poised to further cripple American democracy"
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7198
My organization worked to get a paper ballot law passed, improved election audits, and eliminated the "no match no vote" rule that was blocking eligable voters from casting ballots. I also won the NC ACLU 2006 award. We continue to work to protect and increase the voter franchise.
Joyce McCloy (the first comment posted) is the anti-IRV Captain Abab of the internet seas, relentlessly sharing bits of information that support her views while ignoring the rest. She's driven by her mistaken fear that somehow IRV will lead to touchscreens in her home state of NC even though that's not the case.
Minneapolis is a good case in point. It had a low turnout this year, but as McCloy knows, analysts connect the turnout to a lopsided mayoral race -- in fact, neighboring St. Paul had an even steeper turnout drop for the same reason Meanwhile, a poll after the election showed clear majority support for IRV, with an increase in support among those who voted with it.
On turnout, the situation in Oakland is that IRV will eliminate the need for a low turnout June first-round -- much lower turnout than will be seen in November, but where most Oakland races are won in its previous system
The count in Oakland will be quick and efficient. It took time in Minneapolis because it was carefully done by hand, but as McCloy knows, Oakland will do the count on county equipment.
Hi Dan, Hi John, Hi Bob...
Here's another way of looking at this: I'm sure that Don Perata was working behind the scenes to stop IRV. That makes it semantically accurate for Bob to put that in this piece. But it isn't fair to say it that way. Most lobbying efforts happen on stage and backstage simultaneously.
Don Perata wasn't trying to hide his efforts. There wasn't anything sinister or underhanded in his approach. Don sent an open letter to the Secretary of State, and he did indeed Blog about his concerns about IRV at oaklandliving.
Bloging about it, particularly, was open and somewhat brave. He wrote the piece under his own by-line, and he wrote it on a blog that is frequented by good-governance advocates who were as likely to disagree with him as they were to concur.
Frankly, if I was in his position, tactically, I would have chosen not to write that piece in that venue. The comments that ensued were not particularly supportive.
All of this leads me to believe that it is completely unfair to characterize Don's efforts to delay the implementation of IRV as "behind the scenes". Not only was he relatively upfront about what he wanted, he also was willing to take a lot of public flack for it. His approach was not at all deceitful.
And here's my weird twist of a conclusion: I support IRV, and I'm glad it's being implemented. November elections draw more voters, and local Oakland elections have had abysmal turnout all to often. See you all at the polls in November.
Well, I don't think it's quite accurate to say Perata has been completely open. I think that states the case too far in the opposite direction. He made his moves...and then we found out about them.
Mr. Perata could have publicly gone to the Council President (rather than to a partisan friend on the council). He could have approached the League of Women Voters, or even held a press conference at City Hall - these would be examples of openness. Posting a blog after the fact is more like "doing it now and apologizing later" except we never got the apology.
Quote "Mayoral candidate Don Perata had been lobbying behind the scenes to delay the new system"
The EBX makes stuff up, so they can tout their own story and ignore the existence of bloggers. Don Perata hasn't been working behind the scenes, he has been completely open about his desire to delay IRV. In fact, he guest posted on November 13 on this very topic over the the Living in the O blog -- http://oaklandliving.wordpress.com/2009/11…
The first thing Oakland will need to do is rename "instant runoff voting" and call it "ranked choice voting".
Minneapolis MN just certified the results of their first "instant runoff voting held on Nov 3. So it took a month to make the count officials. After all of that work, Minneapolis had the lowest voter turnout in OVER 100 YEARS.
Yep, thats right, over 100 years.
