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Asian Week
Instant Runoff Voting Is Best For
Minorities
By Eric Mar, Joe
Julian, Tracy Baxter, Mark Sanchez, and Criss Romero
June 19-25,
2003
As elected leaders from San Francisco's communities of
color, we were disappointed that David Lee's opinion piece against
instant runoff voting (IRV) was filled with so many factual errors
and misinformation. Instant runoff voting is critically important
for getting rid of an unnecessary December runoff that was
inconvenient for voters, that often produced extremely low voter
turnout, and cost millions of tax dollars. IRV is good for all San
Franciscans, and in particular it will empower minority voters in San
Francisco.
IRV, which was passed by 55 percent of San Francisco
voters, allows voters to pick not only their first choices, but also
have the option of ranking their second and third choices. Recently
the company hired by The City to upgrade voting equipment submitted
its equipment to the state for certification, and everything appears
to be on track for the November election. Yet a disinformation
campaign has begun, and unfortunately David Lee has become part of
it. He is being represented by the law firm Remcho, Johansen and
Purcell, long-time associates of Willie Brown, who is trying to
block IRV because Brown apparently believes IRV will hurt his
hand-picked candidate for mayor. No matter what you think about the
mayoral candidates, manipulating democracy and obstructing the will
of the voters is wrong. In his opinion piece, Lee states
erroneously: 1) "voters are required to rank every candidate" --
this is incorrect, ranking candidates is optional, not mandatory; 2)
that the city's voting equipment lacks the software to count IRV
ballots - also incorrect, the city's contractor says the software
for a fully automated count will be ready for November; 3) that the
IRV system has "no error notification system" -- wrong again, just
like always, the voting equipment for IRV will be programmed to
notify voters of their errors; 4) that the implementation will be
costly - the costs will be far less than that of a citywide December
runoff, saving millions of dollars every year. We share Lee's
concerns about insuring that communities of color and language
minorities use IRV effectively. But research by San Francisco
State's Professor Rich DeLeon demonstrated that San Francisco's
previously used December runoff ALREADY was disenfranchising
minority voters. Voter turnout declined in that second election more
among minority precincts than other parts of the city, especially
compared to white, conservative precincts. The final election in
December was occurring when minority voter turnout was at its
lowest. Another analysis by Professor DeLeon showed that the ballot
measure for IRV was strongly supported by all racial/ethnic groups
in San Francisco except conservative white voters, including 69
percent support in Latino precincts, 62 percent in African American
precincts, and 55 percent in Asian American precincts. Proposition A
was endorsed by many minority and community leaders and
organizations, including Chinese for Affirmative Action, Asian
Pacific Democratic Club, Asian Week, Latino Democratic Club, San
Francisco Bayview Newspaper, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, the
San Francisco Democratic Party, and more. Moreover, IRV's ranked
ballots have helped communities of color in other places. New York
City has used an at-large form of IRV for school board elections
since 1969. Large percentages of non-English speaking voters have
participated, including non-citizens. As the Asian American Legal
Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) has documented, Asian American
candidates achieved greater electoral success in these elections
than any other in New York. Latino and African-American candidates
also fared well. Margaret Fung, executive director of AALDEF wrote,
"Despite a concern that this voting process may be confusing for
language minority communities, we have found that Asian American
voters, whose primary language is Chinese or Korean, have made very
effective use of this voting system." Specifically, the ranked
ballots encouraged coalition-building and teamwork, and helped
minority communities prevent split votes among their own competing
candidates. IRV elected a black Democratic mayor when it was used
in Ann Arbor, and voter error declined sharply, from 2.3% to 1.2%. A
legal challenge by the losing Republican candidate was rejected by
Michigan courts, and IRV was upheld as constitutional and fully
complying with "one person, one vote." The U.S. Department of
Justice has upheld the use of ranked ballot elections, and Bill Lann
Lee, first Asian American director of the Civil Rights division, was
personally involved in that decision. Political scientists long
have documented the ability of all sorts of voters to use ranked
ballot systems. Dr. Shaun Bowler, political science professor at
UC-Riverside who specializes in voting methods, has said, "The idea
that minority voters can't rank candidates is flat wrong. There's a
hundred years of evidence from around the world that voters of many
cultures, languages, literacy levels, and educational attainments
can rank candidates." There is one area, however, where we agree
with David Lee -- the need for education to make IRV work. That's
why we are so disappointed that David has declined to become
involved in the community education project. The Board of
Supervisors wisely appropriated three-quarters of a million dollars
for community education. We urge David Lee and Mayor Brown to become
involved and make IRV work. 840 words Eric Mar and Mark Sanchez are
members of San Francisco's Board of Education. Joe Julian, Tracy
Baxter and Criss Romero are elected members of the Democratic Party
County Central Committee. |
