Reforms That Helped Elect Candidates of Color in SF, Oakland Under Attack

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New America Media, Op-ed, Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont and Alicia Garza, Posted: May 01, 2011

While political representation for people of color continues to decline nationally, the San Francisco Bay Area has benefited from political reforms that have boosted the number of minority elected officials —and made ethnic voters excited to participate in the electoral process.

Not surprisingly, the old guard hasn’t taken lightly to these challenges to its power. Now reforms such as ranked-choice voting (RCV) and public financing of campaigns are under attack from mainstream media and business groups.

RCV (also known as instant runoff) allows voters to select their first-, second- and third- choice candidates when they cast their ballots for city officials, thus avoiding costly runoff elections. Last November, RCV helped Oakland’s Jean Quan overcome a 4-to-1 spending advantage by the favorite, Democratic powerhouse Don Perata, to become the first Asian-American woman directly elected mayor of a major U.S. city.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, RCV and public financing have helped elect the most diverse Board of Supervisors in the city’s history. Currently, eight out of 11 supervisors are people of color, including four Asians (three of whom are Chinese); three are female and two are openly gay. Since RCV and public financing became the law, the number of people of color elected to the Board of Supervisors has doubled.

The ability of diverse communities to choose their own representatives is an important indicator of the health of our democracy.

But two leading San Francisco institutions—the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chamber of Commerce, whose president, Steve Falk, is the Chronicle’s former publisher— are urging repeal of RCV and a return to the old runoff system.

Oddly, RCV opponents (including political consultants whose candidates, such as Perata, have lost in RCV races) are calling multiracial coalition building "gaming the system." Instead of asking how these well-paid consultants could have run more effective campaigns, they are blaming RCV.

Reform 1: An End to Vote-Splitting

Perhaps the most important way that RCV helps voters of color is by allowing several candidates from the same ethnic community to run against each other without splitting the ethnic vote. In 2008, RCV made it possible for four strong Latino candidates to compete in San Francisco’s heavily Hispanic District 9 without fear of losing to a non-Latino because voters could rank several candidates as their first, second, and third choices.

Last November, RCV allowed District 10—one of the last remaining black communities in San Francisco—to elect an African-American supervisor despite a crowded field. Malia Cohen won by picking up the second- and third-choice votes of supporters of other black (and white and Asian) candidates.

The next big test of RCV happens this fall, when, for the first time, San Francisco’s mayoral election will be subject to ranked-choice balloting. The field includes at least three Asian candidates: state Senator Leland Yee, Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu.

If the city were still using the old voting system, there is no doubt that the Asian vote would split among these candidates, possibly resulting in none of them making it into the December runoff. To prevent that from happening, the Asian community would have already seen all sorts of backroom wheeling and dealing, as powerbrokers twisted arms to keep two of those candidates out of the race.

But with RCV, all of them can run—generating unprecedented excitement in the Asian community. Whichever candidate proves strongest will emerge with the most Asian first-, second- and third-place votes

Reform 2: More Voters Have a Say

RCV also has significantly boosted the ability of voters—especially in communities of color—to have a say in the final outcome of an election. This is because RCV takes advantage of the turnout and excitement generated during November elections—when more people tend to come to the polls because of presidential and gubernatorial elections than turn out to vote in June primaries or December runoffs.

In the 2010 Oakland mayoral election, held in November, some 119,000 voters cast ballots, compared with 84,000 in the 2006 election, held in June. That’s a huge increase—42 percent.

But the greater impact is felt after the first round of RCV votes are counted. In RCV, as in regular elections, any candidate who wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round is the winner. But in cases where there is no clear victor, RCV factors in second- and third-choice rankings—which gives a lot more voters a say in picking the final winner than happens in runoffs (where the turnout is almost always lower, so the ultimate choice is made by a much smaller pool of voters.) In Oakland, for example, Jean Quan won with 54,000 votes, versus 42,000 for Ron Dellums in 2006.

In the 34 races held in San Francisco since the first RCV election in 2004, nearly all have seen more voters participating in the final RCV tally than in the old December runoffs. A study of the 2005 Assessor Recorder's race found that RCV had increased citywide voter participation in the decisive round of that race by 168 percent, or 120,000 voters more than if there had been a December runoff. Moreover, the study found that voter participation tripled in six of the poorest and most diverse neighborhoods due to having a single RCV election in November.

Reform 3: Big Money No Longer Beats All

RCV also has reduced the impact of money in elections—a critical issue since the U.S. Supreme Court’s disasterous decision in the Citizens United case last year gave carte blanche to corporate interests seeking to influence the political process. With no runoff to worry about, candidates only have to raise enough funds for the November election.

More important, to win they have to get out into the community to earn second and third rankings from supporters of other candidates. With RCV, grassroots campaigning can be more influential than big-money ads.

Apparently the Chronicle—which endorsed Perata as well as two Board of Supervisors candidates who lost because of RCV—does not value diversity and broad representation. Since last November's election, the Chronicle has published more than three dozen articles, columns and blog posts highlighting RCV elections, many with a negative slant. One column calling for repeal of RCV was written by the Chronicle’s editorial page editor. Another anti-RCV article, the day’s lead story, was based on a methodologically dubious poll commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce, an RCV opponent, and purporting to show that RCV confuses many voters.

Yet the Chronicle has never reported on two exit poll studies conducted by respected researchers at San Francisco State University from in 2004-05 that showed that 87 percent of respondents said they "understood" RCV. Wouldn’t those SFSU polls have been worth a mention in an article about voter confusion?

Do we detect a pattern here? If the Chronicle truly believes RCV is confusing, why didn’t it publish more articles aimed at educating voters before last November’s election?

What do the Chronicle and the Chamber of Commerce have against representation from communities of color? That's what everyone should be asking them.

Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont is executive director of Oakland Rising (www.oaklandrising.org) and Alicia Garza is co-executive director of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) in San Francisco (www.peopleorganized.org).

Comments

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

This article barely touches the surface of what RCV truly meant for Oakland. You're simply looking at the color of the eventual "victor", not the people who elected her.

Break down the voting demographics in Oakland and you'll learn that Oakland's African American voters (36% of population) voted overwhelmingly for Perata, while Oakland's white [wealthy] voters (31% of population) voted for Jean Quan.

It's the first time since the civil rights movement that Oakland has elected a mayor without majority African American support. Indeed, Perata also won most of the Asian vote.

So which peoples of color benefited from Ranked Choice Voting in Oakland? Just white caucasians.

RCV's "progressive" label is myth pedaled by FairVote.org who benefit financially from selling the system to gullible municipalities. But in reality RCV is regressive and FairVote are predatory charlatans.

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

It's worth mentioning that this article's author and her NGO, Oakland Rising, received a ton of city money to get-out-the-vote for Quan! You're shameless!

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

It's probably worth mentioning that this article's author and her NGO, Oakland Rising, received a ton of city money to get-out-the-vote for Quan! You're shameless!

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

'm so happy for this! RCV is the best choice, at least for me, don't care about anyone else's opinion masking themselves as people of color and talking trash, since that's all it comes out of their greedy self. People of color do benefit from this, we have more voice. Now I bet you are trying to guess, what "color" I am right? lol ;)

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

I'm so happy for this! RCV is the best choice, at least for me, don't care about anyone else's opinion masking themselves as people of color and talking trash, since that's all it comes out of their greedy self. People of color do benefit from this, we have more voice. Now I bet you are trying to guess, what "color" I am right? to start slashing out...lol ;) Now if anyone wants to play numbers and statistics, please provide a reliable source of those findings and research...anyone can make anything up, geez.

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

On the same day that Barack Obama bemoaned the “sideshows and carnival barkers” of US politics, New America Media chose to publish this article "Reforms That Helped Elect Candidates of Color in SF, Oakland Under Attack" – that, frankly, belongs in the same category when it comes to the debate on the merits of Ranked Choice Voting.

The authors, Tervalon-Daumont and Garza employ the same type of Enron style accounting of statistics typical of RCV supporters. They fail to understand the simple concept of correlation and causation. RCV did not "cause" more diverse representation any more than Sarah Palin bringing out the male African American voters in 2008.

This so-called article is so full of holes it should be shown to communication students as an example of shoddy journalism.

There certainly is a conflict of interest here. Tervalon-Daumont's organization received $3.30 of taxpayer funds for every phone call they made to Oakland residents concerning RCV.

In the SJSU study they reference, they neglect to report that study showed 23.24% of African Americans "Did not understand RCV" compared to 11.65% Whites. Additionally, over 40% did not even know they would be using RCV when they arrived at the polls.

This certainly mimics Oakland's experience as shown in these short videos - they was a lot of confused voters in Oakland, and even an election official could not show how RCV works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b42PLX9RTag

Even the City Council lamented about how confusing RCV is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWjdyFMyrL4

The best part of this article were the links from the Chronicle that shows a critical look at the RCV experiment.

This fad has come and gone, with many cities rejecting RCV. Just this month, Fort Collins shot down a proposal to implement RCV by 61% to 39%. And the Honolulu City Council unanimously rejected the use of RCV in their elections.

And finally, on Wednesday, the San Jose City Council, after an extensive study including the recent RCV elections, unanimously voted to scuttle any consideration of using RCV in their elections citing many problems.

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

This so-called article is so full of holes it should be shown to communication students as an example of shoddy journalism.

There certainly is a conflict of interest here. Tervalon-Daumont's organization received $3.30 of taxpayer funds for every phone call they made to Oakland residents concerning RCV.

This certainly mimics Oakland's experience as shown in these short videos - they was a lot of confused voters in Oakland, and even an election official could not show how RCV works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b42PLX9RTag

Even the City Council lamented about how confusing RCV is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWjdyFMyrL4

The best part of this article was the links from the Chronicle that shows a critical look at the RCV experiment.

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

Jean Quan is the first Mayor of Oakland in over 60 years not to be elected with majority support.

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

While it is true that the city demographics used to be 36% Black and 31% White the racial break down of voters isn't proportional to that. It's not the case nationally, statewide or locally, in fact. So that argument is just silly.

Saying that black people voted for Perata is totally untrue too. I am black. I live in Oakland and I didn't vote for him. Neither did any of the people I know, go to church with or work with (all in Oakland, by the way). Perata is a crooked politician and nobody likes him. He didn't win because he didn't get the #2 votes.

The Asian vote seems pretty clearly to go for Quan, but that misses the point too.

Thanks to Instant Run Off voting I didn't have to vote for Perata. I could vote for whoever I liked the best (Rebecca Kaplan, Quan and then Tuman). It worked because regular people, like me, could think for ourselves for a change.

It worked. Oakland is on the right track. And the Pro-perata comments here just prove the point. He's a bully, politician and a sore, sore loser.

Instant Run Off voting works because

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

The Asian vote seems pretty clearly to go for Quan, but that misses the point too.

It worked. Oakland is on the right track. And the Pro-perata comments here just prove the point. He's a bully, politician and a sore, sore loser.

Instant Run Off voting works because

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

The Asian vote seems pretty clearly to go for Quan, but that misses the point too.

It worked. Oakland is on the right track. And the Pro-perata comments here just prove the point. He's a bully politician and a sore, sore loser. Don't you all have something better to do than hate? You must be from the City!

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

Any voting system should be designed to elect the person who the majority of people consider the most qualified candidate, period. I don't know if RCV accomplishes this purpose, but promoting it because it allegedly helps puts "people of color" in office is racist, pure and simple. Shame on everyone involved in this article.

Anonymous

Posted Apr 30 2011

Quan got the majority of votes. In fact she got a larger percentage of the vote than Dellums in his landslide victory.

Since when is making sure voters of color vote in masse for candidates that look like them and represent their interest in office racist?

Seems to me like you need to check your racism!

Anonymous

Posted May 1 2011

119,607 voters cam out and cast ballots in this election.

Quan received 53,897 votes (after picking up many 2nd and 3rd preferences)

53,897 / 119,607 = 45% support.

Using the logic of RCV, if they extended it one more round, and dropped Perata, Quan could claim she received 100% of the vote!

Anonymous

Posted May 2 2011

OK, so I want to start out by saying that I believe in RCV. I believe it increases turnout. I believe it opens up elections to a wider field of candidates and a wider field of ideas. I believe the Chronicle and the Chamber of Commerce are making critiques based on faulty premises.

However, as far as Oakland is concerned, I think that some of Ms. Garcia and Ms. Tervalon-Daumont's assumptions about the benefits of RCV are incorrect.

Let's consider the point about creating more opportunities for candidates of color to win.

Before the 2010 RCV election, Oakland's 11 elected officials could be demographically listed as follows: 6 caucasians, 5 people of color. 8 women, 3 men. 10 straight, 1 out lesbian.

After the RCV election, Oakland's 11 elected officials were: 7 caucasians, 4 people of color. 9 women, 2 men. 10 straight, 1 out lesbian.

That's a net loss of one person of color, a net gain of one woman, and the LGBT ratio is unchanged.

Also, consider that Ms. Tervalon-Daumont and I are about the same age, and in our lifetimes there has been only one Mayor who was not a person of color: Jerry Brown. Oakland seems to have a very healthy level of diversity in public office. We also have very strong diversity in our unelected municipal workforce.

This doesn't mean that we should stop being vigilant about diversity and empowerment. It just means that we need to take credit for one of the few things that our city government has actually done right. (as an aside, if we really want to examine a diversity problem in the 2012 election, consider that there were no viable Black or Latino candidates for Mayor in a city that's 27% black and 25% latino!)

Next, let's consider Jean Quan's victory over Don Perata. Both Quan and Perata had held public office for decades. Neither can be considered an outsider candidate. They were both establishment candidates, they were just representing different factions of the establishment.

Even Rebecca Kaplan cannot be considered a true outsider. Unlike Perata or Quan, she held a citywide elected post while she was running. While she had only served in elected office for about ten years as opposed to Perata and Quan's totals of about 20 years in office, Kaplan is also 20 years younger than Perata and Quan - she would have had to be elected at age 18 to have served as long as her opponents.

Consider that besides Perata, Quan and Kaplan, no candidate broke 10%. All the outsiders got their butts whipped. RCV didn't change that element of the status quo.

Now, to the very important point about Jean Quan beating Don Perata while being outspent: Jean Quan has also won non-RCV elections while being outspent. She spoke about this repeatedly during her campaign. In a race for District 4, David Stein outspent Jean Quan 2-1. Quan has also mentioned being outspent in her race for school board.

So what does that tell us? Well, in the article above, it explicitly states that Don Perata lost because of RCV. I disagree. Don Perata lost because Jean Quan has got game. It's likely that had this been a runoff election, Jean Quan would have won. It seems odd to me that people who supported her race would dilute the credit that Quan deserves for winning by ascribing undue credit to RCV. I didn't vote for Quan as any of my three choices, but I must acknowledge her electioneering talent.

I want to reiterate that I do support RCV, and I want to say that the Chronicle and the Chamber, in my opinion, are clearly not opposing RCV from a race based perspective. They're just upset that their candidates of choice lost, and they're looking for something to blame.

That the Chron, the Chamber, and Oakland Rising are incorrect to pin too much credit for this election's outcome on RCV. It was the candidates that won and lost the races, it wasn't the voting method. RCV made the election cheaper, included more voices in the debates, and increased participation.

These are all good things, but RCV is not so powerful and significant as to have changed the game of insider politics in a single election cycle. If it could do that, it probably never would have been implemented in the first place.

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