San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's 43% "Landslide" Win

ABC reported that the incumbent by appointment, Interim Mayor Ed Lee had been elected mayor with 61% of the vote when he had actually won only 43% of ballots cast, including those of voters who marked him as their second and third choice. KPFA Weekend News Anchor: ABC News affiliate KGO-TV reported this week that San Francisco's Interim, appointed, mayor, Ed Lee, had become San Francisco's elected mayor in a landslide, with 61% of the vote. In fact, Interim Mayor Lee won roughly 43% of the vote, including the votes of San Franciscans who ranked him as their second or third choice on ballots designed for the City's first instant run-off mayoral election. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison: In the last days of San Francisco's mayoral election this week, guerrilla campaigners modified Interim, appointed Mayor Ed Lee's "Ed Lee Gets It Done" campaign signs to read "Ed Lee Gets It Done for the 1%."  However, ABC's Bay Area affiliate station KGO, reported on Wednesday that Lee had won 61% of the vote.  

ABC Local, KGO, Channel 7:  And now to another big story tonight, the race is over. Ed Lee is San Francisco's Mayor. After 11 rounds of ranked choice eliminations, Lee has 61% of the vote. Supervisor John Avalos has 39%.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Ed Lee actually won with roughly 43% of ballots cast, including some second and third choices, after the Department of Elections discounted the ballots of voters whose three ranked choices had all fallen too far behind in the vote count to have any chance of winning left. KPFA spoke to Fremont-based business and elections lawyer Gauttam Dutta about the instant run-off outcome. 

Business and elections lawyer, and ranked choice voting advocate, Gauttam Dutta KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Do you think this is a more democratic outcome than would have been achieved with the old-fashioned primary election, followed by a run-off, if no candidate wins 50% in the primary?  

Gauttam Dutta: Yes, definitely, it's a more democratic outcome. Just going back for a second, what that 60 percent number means is that, of all the people who voted for Ed Lee or John Avalos, three fifths of them voted for Ed Lee. And turning to your question, there are three reasons why ranked choice voting is better than the runoff system that we used to have in San Francisco. First off, ranked choice voting gives voters three choices, not one. That's a really important ability that the voters now have that they didn't have before  And, especially because, in this race, you had 16 candidates for mayor. Imagine if you only had one choice and you were leaning towards voting for a long shot candidate. You might be worried about voting for someone say, like a Johanna Rees. You might be afraid of voting for them because you'd think "Ohhh, she doesn't really have a real chance of winning, so voting for her would waste my vote, so maybe I should vote for my second choice. What ranked choice voting does is take away all your worries, because now you know that you can vote for someone who might be considered a long shot, because now you have the comfort of knowing that, if the candidate who was your first choice doesn't make it, your vote will automatically go to your second choice.    

​The second reason ranked choice voting is really good is that it enabled an outsider like John Avalos to vault to second place despite being massively outspent by Ed Lee and other candidates.  

And the last reason that ranked choice voting produced a better outcome is because, more likely than not, Ed Lee would have beaten John Avalos in a run-off election, primarily because his folks would have outspent John Avalos's supporters by a huge margin.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  What about the suggestion that the three choices offered on San Francisco's instant run-off ballot be expanded to 4, 5, 6, or more?

Gauttam Dutta: I think that would be a great idea. In fact the City of St. Paul, which voted last week, let voters rank at least six choices. In fact the City of Saint Paul, which just used ranked choice voting in its first election last week, lets voters rank six choices. In fact the San Francisco City Charter provides for as many choices as possible for voters and the only limitation is what the voting equipment allows.  Right now the voting equipment only allows for three choices, but I would hope that the City can work on this in the coming years, so that voters will have more than three choices, 'cause it really matters, especially when you have 16 candidates running. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Fewer than half of San Francisco's registered voters bothered to vote in this year's election. 

For Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.