By Eve Batey
Published November 10th 2006 in San Francisco Chronicle Blog
The San Francisco Board of Elections has posted the ranked choice voting results for Districts Four and Six (Districts Two, Eight, and 10 had clear majority leaders, thus going to RCV was unnecessary).
And the leaders? In District Four, Ed Jew. Charlie Goodyear reports:
Jew secured a 52 percent majority, capturing 7670 votes out of a total of 14716 eligible ballots in San Francisco's District Four after the results of the city's ranked-choice voting were announced. Although Jew had been trailing behind businessman Ron Dudum, he surged into the lead thanks to hundreds voters who listed him as their second choice on ballots cast for third and fourth-place finishers Jaynry Mak and Doug Chan.
In District Six, incumbent Supervisor Chris Daly retained his seat, with just over 50% of the vote.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.