Exhausted Ballots in the 2018 San Francisco Mayoral Election
Exhausted Ballots: Did They Affect the Outcome in San Francisco’s Mayoral Election?
By Steven Hill and Pedro Hernandez
Executive Summary
In the 2018 mayoral election in San Francisco, 21,000 ballots (8.6% of all ballots cast) became “exhausted” -- is it possible that the number of exhausted ballots impacted the winner in San Francisco's mayoral election? Or, alternatively, if SF voters had more than three rankings (which might have reduced the number of exhausted ballots), might that have affected the outcome? The answer to both questions is: no. By using publicly available ballot-image data to analyze this race, it can be determined that a substantial number of the exhausted ballots came from voters who supported the less progressive-identified candidates in the race. Those voters tended to favor London Breed over Mark Leno by a ratio of 1.36 to 1. Some voters for Jane Kim also saw their ballots exhaust, and those voters tended to strongly favor Mark Leno. Overall, this analysis estimates that, with more rankings for voters leading to fewer exhausted ballots, Leno might have closed the victory margin by an estimated total of 183 votes. This would not have been enough to overcome the 2,600 vote gap between himself and London Breed.
In addition, if Jane Kim had won 700 more first choice rankings and surpassed Mark Leno in the first round, would that have changed the outcome of the election? Definitely not. In fact, London Breed would have won by an even greater margin, because Kim would have picked up fewer second and third rankings from Leno supporters than Leno picked up from Kim supporters.
Read moreQuick Takes - 2018 San Francisco Mayoral Election
Huge turnout
- Voter turnout will end up around 53%, giving San Francisco its highest turnout for mayor in 15 years, much higher than statewide turnout (36%) in California.
Greater usage of ranked choice voting (RCV)
- The mayor’s race drove turnout. San Francisco voters cast more RCV ballots for mayor than non-RCV ballots for governor and U.S. senator.
- 86% of voters used at least two of their rankings in the mayor’s race, and nearly 70% used all three of their rankings.
Press Release: San Francisco Mayoral Election By the Numbers: A First Look
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 5, 2018
Contact: Pedro Hernandez at [email protected] or 415.613.2363
San Francisco Mayoral Election By the Numbers: A First Look
Trends Suggest Voters Using RCV Better Than Ever More San Francisco Voters for Mayor than for Governor and Far Less Error
SAN FRANCISCO -- First ranked choice voting (RCV) election results in the special election for mayor of San Francisco suggest that voters are handling ranked choice voting ballots well. After analyzing the first release of the 78,223 ballots received by the Board of Elections on June 4, FairVote California finds that San Francisco voters are continuing to make effective use of ranked choice voting.
San Francisco Report: RCV is Working as Intended with Positive Voter Experience and Increase in Voter Turnout and Use of Rankings
San Francisco Report: RCV is Working as Intended with Positive Voter Experience and Increase in Voter Turnout and Use of Rankings
By Pedro Hernandez
FairVote California has released a comprehensive report providing an overview of how San Francisco voters are using ranked choice voting (RCV) to elect their local officials.
The study shows that more voters use their rankings when a race is competitive and where there are more than two well known candidates, which encourages higher voter turnout and illustrates that this electoral reform is being used as intended. RCV provides voters with greater choice and makes their vote more impactful.
Ranked Ballots are More Democratic Than Runoffs
The percentage of fully ranked ballots had no clear trend over time, but rather appeared to depend more on other factors such as number of candidates and competitiveness. Among the findings, the report showed that 75.4% of ballots had two or three rankings.
Read moreEverything you need to know about San Francisco’s mayoral June 2018 election
(image source: sfelections.org)
With the sudden passing of Mayor Edwin Lee on Dec. 12, voters in San Francisco will be choosing a new mayor in a special election on June 5, 2018. The winner will be choice in a single ranked choice voting, “instant runoff” election unlike most California vacancies that take far longer to fill over two rounds of voting.
Candidates for the special election will be required to submit their nomination papers by 5 pm on Jan. 9, 2018. The period for candidates to gather voter signatures to reduce the cost of filing nomination papers for the office of mayor is now open; this period ends Tuesday, Dec. 26 at 5pm.
While the field for candidates is not yet clear, we wanted to to provide our supporters with an overview of what to expect.
Read moreSan Francisco Open Source Voting System Project
What is the project? The project is for the City and County of San Francisco to develop and certify an open source paper-ballot voting system, as described in detail by a resolution passed unanimously by the San Francisco Elections Commission in November 2015.[1]
What is an open source voting system? An open source voting system is a voting system consisting of open source software running on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS, aka “commodity”) hardware. Open source software is software that is free for anyone to inspect, use, and improve.[2] The software is public and non-proprietary. The Firefox web browser and the Linux and Android operating systems are three widely used examples of open source software. Open source software is used heavily by successful technology companies large and small.
Read moreEvery RCV Election in the Bay Area So Far Has Produced Condorcet Winners
There are numerous ways to assess an electoral system. Mathematicians and political scientists have developed hundreds of different criteria, with the most common including the majority criterion, the later-no-harm criterion and the Condorcet winner criterion.
The Condorcet winner criterion is one of the most common criteria. It states that the candidate who would win a one-on-one matchup against any other candidate should win the election. The frequency with which an electoral system elects Condorcet winners is a good measure of whether the election system reflects the political center of a given electorate, since a Condorcet winner, by definition, has to be able to win over a majority of the electorate regardless of alternative choices.
A system that more often elects Condorcet winners will less often elect a candidate disliked by the majority of voters--an outcome that US voters in plurality elections and low turnout runoffs know all too well. It is hard to estimate how many US elections using plurality and runoff systems elect candidates disliked by a majority of voters, but we all have anecdotes of reviled politicians who somehow manage to keep being re-elected.
Read moreBay Area Spotlight: San Francisco Supervisor District 1
Last November, voters in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro had the opportunity to vote in ranked choice voting elections (RCV), which gives voters a stronger voice and greater choice in our elections.
In San Francisco, voter turnout was 80.7% of registered voters casting a ballot -- down 0.5% from 2008, but representing more city voters than ever before in history at 414,516 votes.
San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar was termed out in 2016, which left an open seat on the Board of Supervisors. Nine (9) candidates entered the race. Current San Francisco Unified School District Commissioner Sandra Lee Fewer emerged as the winner in this election. The analysis below provides an overview of how she won in an RCV election.
Read moreBay Area Opportunity to Make Voting Easier to Use
Our friends at the Center for Civic Design are looking for people to help test some new ballot designs and voter education materials, to help make voting a better experience.
If you live and vote in San Francisco or Alameda County, they'd love to have you participate in their research study.
Read moreOur Take on Bay Area RCV Election Results
Dear friends,
I went to bed late Tuesday night/Wednesday morning refreshing all of my web browsers trying to keep up with all of the election results. With Election Day behind us, there are exciting opportunities and challenges ahead. I hope we can agree that our election system has a direct impact on who will represent us. As we still process election results at the local and national level, you can turn to us for an analysis of ranked choice voting elections from now until the untold future.
Read more