Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Perata May Have Blown It on Ranked Choice Voting
Politics / People Robert Gammon — Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 2:23 PM
The decision by ex-state Senator Don Perata to ignore the advantages of ranked choice voting may end up costing him the Oakland mayor’s race. Throughout the campaign, Perata repeatedly urged supporters to just vote for him, implied strongly that they should not select anyone else for their second and third choices, and failed to implore his rivals’ supporters to pick him as their second or third choice.
By contrast, current leader Councilwoman Jean Quan worked overtime to convince voters to pick her second or third on their ballots, while repeatedly urging her supporters to pick Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan second. The moves likely endeared her to Kaplan supporters. And it paid off. According to the most recent results, Quan received three times as many second and third-place votes from voters who selected Kaplan than Perata did. “It’s an extremely smart thing to do with ranked choice voting,” Steven Hill, a ranked choice voting advocate, said of Quan’s strategy.
But Perata’s strategy, which essentially was to show disdain for the new voting system, may have backfired. By telling voters to just pick him, he may have alienated supporters of Kaplan and Joe Tuman, who is currently in fourth place. He also sent an unspoken message that if he was not a voter’s first choice, then they should just leave him off their ballots.
It was a head-scratching maneuver, considering that none of the pre-election polls showed Perata receiving a majority of first-place votes. That meant he knew he had to get lots of second- and third-place votes to win. Yet he didn’t go after them. And it may cost him dearly. Perata has received 34% of the first-place votes, compared to Quan’s 25%, but she trounces him on second and third-place votes, propelling her over the 50% mark, according to the most recent results.
Kaplan also appeared to understand how ranked choice elections work. Like Quan, she abstained from criticizing her opponents — except Perata — because she realized that it could turn off her rivals’ supporters and prompt them to leave her off their ballots. Criticizing Perata, by contrast, carried very little risk for Quan and Kaplan, because the polls showed that he would be among the two final candidates in the ranked choice tabulations, and thus the second and third choices on ballots that had him first wouldn’t come into play.
Kaplan also urged Quan and Tuman supporters to pick her second or third. And in the final weeks of the campaign, she pointed her supporters to endorsements in the Express and the Oakland Tribune that urged voters to consider Tuman and Quan. The results show her strategy apparently worked well with Tuman supporters, because many of them selected her second. And if Kaplan passes Quan in the ballot count, she’s expected to get a huge boost from Quan supporters — just as her supporters went for Quan.
Comments (4)
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V Smoothe continues to be disingenuous on all of this. Read her original post and her later comments to see how she suggested to voters they vote for Perata, and only for Perata. In post 65 on why you advocate DP for mayor you say, to quote verbatim: "I wasn’t planning on marking anyone for #2 or #3. There just are not any other candidates in the race that I can feel good about voting for."
Perhaps the campaigners for Perata got confused about the message - they were supposed to push for Perata as a 2nd or 3rd place for folks not ranking Perata #1, but encourage voters who were planning to list Perata first to not rank anyone else at all? This convoluted strategy was very alienating, and I for one am glad you were a part of it - it helped clarify your real intentions and what a stoolie for the Perata campaign you served as.
Finally, yes, I believe you were very deceptive about your support for Perata, indicating publicly you were open to all candidates, then contriving various false and make up arguments to try to convince people to vote against them. I personally think you abused a trust that had been built up with your readers, but time will tell if that is the case or not, or if they recognize how you attempted to manipulate them from behind a veil of hidden agendas.
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Interesting V. Smoothie. When you ran a hit piece on Joe Tuman you mentioned that you made nosecret that you were a supporter of Perata's. Now you claim that you have first-hand knowledge of the instructed to ask for the second or third choices. Is this because you were one of those volunteers or because you were even more active in the campaign. Probably should have made either one clearer in your blog, if journalistic integrity has any bearing on your posts. If not, no problem thn but you should probably make that known as well.
I just remember Perata's campaign telling me CANCER and BELIEVE. Oh, and breaking all the spending laws.
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I do not think it is an accurate characterization to say that Perata's campaign "failed to implore his rivals’ supporters to pick him as their second or third choice." I don't recall Don Perata's campaign ever saying that. And I volunteered for the campaign a fair amount, so I can say with firsthand knowledge that volunteers were definitely instructed to educate voters about ranked choice voting, and ask for second choice votes from voters who already had settled on a different candidate.
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