What these results show is that RCV is tantamount to first past the post, that is, races without runoffs where the first place candidate wins irrespective of whether they receive a majority of the vote, as there has been no case in San Francisco where the first place winner in the first round has not gone on to win the election.

If there was no ideological transfer in D9, the most progressive district, where the two more progressive candidates earned more than 1/2 of the vote on the first round, yet the more moderate candidate prevailed, there will never be any ideological coalescence in nonpartisan RCV.

In a partisan race, ideology can be divined via party designation, and ranked ideologically:

progressive: green > dem > rep > lib :conservative

But absent such designations, voters have little information available to make those ideological determinations, and the votes just scatter randomly.

What this calls for is for RCV candidates in ideologically similar races where ethnicity, the only proven RCV determinant, is a wash, to take the gloves off and do their best to eliminate an ideological ally, as all we are seeing is spoiling on the part of a unified more moderate candidate of what should have been a progressive rout in the most progressive district.

In D6 in 2010, for instance, a progressive candidate would need to take out a seat warming liberal like Debra Walker first so that they might have a clear shot at Rob Black.

-marc

FYI,

I did a 'candidate's tour' of elections this am and they answered only one question I posed: they have, thus far, set aside 9,500 'pending outstack ballots'. On page 23 of their Observation Guide it says that "Markers must code both the original and the remake (duplicate) ballot with the following information ...

Serial number to trace back to original
ballot."

When querried, the man in charge (named Quong) couldn't remember who hired him 8 years ago and said that it was not possible to find out if my ballot had actually been counted. I asked him if the 'serial number' they wrote on both the remake and the original was the serial number of my original ballot, he said ... "No". He said it would be illegal to be able to do that.

Hmmmm,

h.

Actually, we posted the results in HTML format over at PirateCatRadio.com last night:
http://www.piratecatradio.com/wordpress/?p=4826

The two most interesting pieces of information:
1. In all of the races, there's only one significant bump: In District 11, John Avalos expands his lead over Asha Safai by 300 votes when Julio Ramos is eliminated. So even if Safai continues to gain on Avalos as the remaining absentees are counted, Avalos has a "built in" 300 vote lead coming from Ramos' ballots.
2. In District 9, Eric Quezada's second place votes split evenly between Campos and Sanchez. So Campos' lead looks safe unless Sanchez catches up in the remaining counting.

Shameless plug: check out Pirate Cat's local political show every Friday from 6-8 with the League of Pissed Off Voters. 87.9 FM or streaming online at http://PirateCatRadio.com or on iTunes radio under "Alternative."

Actually, Marc, in the vast majority of non-IRV instances, the candidate who comes in first wins the runoff. This isn't all that different. The difference is that the D9 candidates had an incentive not to trash each other. Which is a good thing.

Tim, tell that to Supervisors A. Brown, M. Teng and M. Yaki.

What we're seeing here is that candidates not only need to campaign with an eye towards IRV, but they have to count on their opponents campaigning with an eye to IRV.

That means that the imperative to promote one's own candidacy without the distraction of legitimating other candidacies, a very strong inclination in a winner take all race, has to take a back seat to promoting one's ideological allies as well.

All it takes is one candidate not doing that for there to be no coherent second place vote strategy. Let's just say that if an unreconstructed Stalinist who would propose policies that restrict options many in order to promote the common good cannot put aside self interest and campaign cooperatively for the common good, then it is not going to happen.

Add in the Guardian's endorsement of the most moderate leading candidate and you've got one ideological stew that is undiscernable to the average voter.

When we have data points that fall into two classes, then we can make some conclusions:

1. incumbents win.
2. first place in first round wins.

Let's just call IRV what it is: first past the post--worse than runoffs. The simplest explanation is the correct explanation.

-marc

Tim, tell that to Supervisors A. Brown, M. Teng and M. Yaki.

What we're seeing here is that candidates not only need to campaign with an eye towards IRV, but they have to count on their opponents campaigning with an eye to IRV.

That means that the imperative to promote one's own candidacy without the distraction of legitimating other candidacies, a very strong inclination in a winner take all race, has to take a back seat to promoting one's ideological allies as well.

All it takes is one candidate not doing that for there to be no coherent second place vote strategy. Let's just say that if an unreconstructed Stalinist who would propose policies that restrict options many in order to promote the common good cannot put aside self interest and campaign cooperatively for the common good, then it is not going to happen.

Add in the Guardian's endorsement of the most moderate leading candidate and you've got one ideological stew that is undiscernable to the average voter.

When we have data points that fall into two classes, then we can make some conclusions:

1. incumbents win.
2. first place in first round wins.

Let's just call IRV what it is: first past the post--worse than runoffs. The simplest explanation is the correct explanation.

-marc