opinion

The value of IRV
By Steven Hill

FIFTEEN PERCENT. That was the voter turnout for the Dec. 11 runoff to elect the city attorney, the lowest in San Francisco's history. Voter turnout also declined in the December 2000 runoff by nearly 50 percent, as it has in most runoffs.

Runoff elections also undermine campaign finance reform, since they give an advantage to candidates who can raise more money for a second election.

San Francisco's Proposition A – which is endorsed by Board of Supervisors president Tom Ammiano, Sups. Matt Gonzalez and Jake McGoldrick, the Democratic Party, the San Francisco Tenants Union, the Green Party, the Sierra Club, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and more than a dozen other progressive organizations – seeks to improve our runoff elections. Prop. A will implement instant runoff voting (IRV), which achieves the goal of a runoff election – majority rule – without the cost and hassle of a second election.

IRV works much like December's "delayed" runoff. Voters indicate their favorite candidate, just like they do now – but they also have the option of indicating their runoff choices at the same time. They do this by ranking them on their ballot, one, two, three.

Prop. A will boost voter turnout, support campaign finance reform, decrease campaign mudslinging, save $2 million a year in taxes (the cost of the second election), and avoid the considerable headaches of a second election in the middle of the busy holiday season.

IRV has additional features that make it particularly attractive for progressive politics in San Francisco. With IRV, candidates have an incentive to court the supporters of other candidates, asking for their second or third rankings. Successful candidates often win by building coalitions, not by tearing down their opponents.

IRV also will prevent vote splitting among progressive candidates. For instance, the 1991 mayoral contest that elected Frank Jordan was plagued by a split vote among progressives over whether to support Art Agnos or Angela Alioto.

Historically, December runoffs have not benefited progressive candidates in San Francisco. Conservative voters usually turn out more consistently, and not surprisingly, the Republican Party is the leading organizational opposition to Prop. A, just as it tried to block national voting reform after the Florida fiasco.

Some progressives are wondering if low-turnout December runoffs will allow progressive candidates to win by giving them a chance to out-mobilize conservatives. They point to the come-from-behind victories of Jake McGoldrick and Sophie Maxwell in the December 2000 runoff as evidence of the success of such a strategy.

My reading of that election is that both candidates would have won with IRV. The tide of anti-Willie Brown/anti-development sentiment that swept the elections in 2000 would have manifested itself with IRV as well. McGoldrick and Maxwell would have picked up the second and third rankings from the voters for losing anti-Brown candidates (apparently McGoldrick thinks so too, since he has endorsed Prop. A).

In the long term, progressives have to build a political culture in San Francisco in which people are mobilized to counteract the big-money campaigns that the Committee on Jobs, Pacific Gas and Electric, and developers are able to mount.

With IRV progressives could maximize resources and mobilization for one concentrated effort. We could prevent split votes among progressive candidates and could build coalitions that turn out undermobilized communities – low-income and minority communities and younger voters – who will support progressive politics.

IRV, with its incentives for coalition building and voter mobilization, is a better vehicle for the future of progressive politics in San Francisco.

Steven Hill is the western regional director of the Center for Voting and Democracy. For more information about IRV go to www.improvetherunoff.org or call (415) 824-2735.