Oakland Tribune, November 24, 2010
My Word: Ranked-Choice Voting Worked Well For Oakland
By Anne Spanier and Judy Cox
Guest Commentary
RANKED-CHOICE VOTING has been successfully used for the first time in the city of Oakland, bringing us the following benefits:
With only one election, local races are held in November, when significantly more people vote. This year, 119,392 people voted for mayor, compared with only 83,891 when Ron Dellums won his election in 2006. The city saved $800,000 by holding one election, not two; an Oakland voter had the chance to vote his or her conscience by casting a first-place vote for a less-known candidate, and then casting an acceptable alternative as second and third choices.
A successful RCV candidate must appeal both to their base and a broader section of the community. Candidates who formed coalitions, walked precincts, attended forums and endorsement meetings and worked hard to reach all voters were more successful than candidates who made little effort to reach voters beyond sending expensive four-color mailing pieces attacking opponents.
Oakland voters understood and used the RCV system, finding it much less mysterious than the pundits quoted in some news outlets.
In this year's mayoral race, 99.7 percent cast valid ballots, a clear indication of voter understanding. About 72 percent of Oakland voters ranked three candidates, another 13 percent ranked two candidates, adding to the group that got RCV.
Information on how the counting system worked is available on the registrar of
voters Website. Simple fourth-grade arithmetic skills are all that is required to follow the counting and redistributing process.
Charges that voters get to know the candidates better when there are two distinct elections have also been made. Is there any evidence of this?
The history of RCV elections in San Francisco and other cities show that incumbents do almost as well in RCV elections as they do in two-race contests, indicating that voters do -- or do not -- get to know candidates in RCV elections at least as well as those running in old-style elections.
General elections in November not only assure a larger number of voters, but also a more diverse group of voters. Studies of the elections running up to the 2006 RCV campaign showed that in many precincts of communities of color, almost 100 percent more people voted in November versus June.
Don Perata claims that he earned the highest number of first-place votes and is puzzled why that didn't translate into victory. Actually, he gained 33-plus percent of the first-place votes, simply a plurality. Using the RCV to produce a majority winner led to Jean Quan's success, as she gained second and third-place votes.
Perata and his supporters fail to understand that second- and third-place votes are valid votes, as much as first-place choices are, giving voters a chance to make more nuanced choices than the old-style system.
And, at the end of the race, Quan received more total votes than Perata. In addition, Perata outspent his nearest rival by more than 2-to-1, making this race one of the most expensive in recent Oakland history.
In addition to more choices for the voter, greater participation in the process by minority voters, and less expense to the city, we may have found a way to blunt the power of money in elections by using ranked-choice voting.
Anne Spanier is a former member of the board of Oakland League of Women Voters and founding member of the Measure O campaign. Judy Cox is a former co-president of League of Women Voters of Oakland and former president of MGO Democratic Club.
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League of Women Voters of Oakland, California. All rights reserved.
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