One Person, One Vote!
RCV/IRV -
San Francisco's Experience:
Channel 5 - "The most confusing election ever." - "controversial" - "low turnout" - "Failed Experiement"
Channel 7 - IRV "generated quite a bit of contrivers and confusion" - "So many people don't understand how it works" - "low turnout" - "Charter Amendment to Repeal"
Channel 5 - "Confusion could keep voter turnout low" - ""State monitor on hand to observe complaints of voter fraud" - "Charter amendment to end IRV" - "Mayor facing a recall"
SF Supervisors Repeal IRV Meeting - "Your votes were tossed in the garbage"
Third place WINS!
In SF's D10 18,308 voters cast ballots.
Malia Cohen was in third place. After 20 recounts, and over 52% of the votes tossed away (9,303), she "won" with 4,321 votes or about 24% support. 76% of the voters voted against her.
SF Supervisors Repeal IRV Meeting - "We had minorities turnout, but their votes were tossed out" - "what’s worse when you have a voter that doesn’t show up, or a voter that actually shows up, goes to the trouble of educating themselves, voting, then because RCV (IRV) is difficult for some people to understand, they’ve gone to that effort, and their votes not counted, it’s tossed out"
News Articles
Press Release by IRV Supporters: "Shows Positive Views" - 57% of Blacks found (IRV) to be easy to use compared to 35% who found (IRV) to be difficult vs. 71% Whites to be easy compared to 13% who found it difficult.
On the perils of 'instant runoff" voting - A blindfold and a dartboard"Shows Positive Views" - "57% of Blacks found (IRV) to be easy to use compared to 35% who found (IRV) to be difficult vs. 71% Whites to be easy compared to 13% who found it difficult."
Many SF Voters Used Ranked-Choice Voting Incorrectly: "The results are in: San Francisco voters have trouble with ranked-choice elections"
New ranked Choice Voting (IRV) ballots baffle many San Francisco Voters- "Despite an ad campaign explaining the nuances of ranked- choice voting, many voters were confused Tuesday"
Ranked Choice Voting (IRV): Does anyone really understand it?- "Nearly 4,000 votes in District 7 were thrown out because they had none of the remaining candidates marked; in last year's mayoral election, 52,000 ballots were so "exhausted."
A Critical Spotlight Shines on Ranked-Choice Voting (IRV) - NY Times - "And there is new evidence that many voters do not understand ranked-choice voting, which has led to some ballots being invalidated in numbers high enough possibly to affect the outcome."
San Francisco deserves a shot to repeal Ranked Choice Voting (IRV)- "San Franciscans who are fed up with the ranked-choice voting experiment, which has produced voter confusion and vacuous campaigns, are going to have to take the matter in their own hands ."
Academic Studies
Ranked-choice voting linked to lower turnout: - "An analysis revealed a significant relationship between RCV 9IRV) and decreased turnout among black and white voters, younger voters and voters who lacked a high school education"
Ballot (and voter) "exhaustion" under Instant Runoff Voting: An examination of four ranked-choice voting elections: - Journal of Electoral Studies - "We document a problem known as ballot “exhaustion,” which results in a substantial number of votes being discarded in each election." "One concern is whether the rates of ballot exhaustion varied systematically and affected disadvantaged and low-socioeconomic groups more than others."