hello, and welcome to the department of elections ranked-choice voting instructional video. this video is part of the department of elections' ranked-choice voting outreach campaign and is designed to educate san francisco voters about ranked-choice voting. today we will learn what ranked-choice voting is, and who is elected using this new voting method. we will also talk about what the ranked-choice ballot looks like and how to mark it correctly. finally, we'll see how the ranked-choice voting process works and show you an example of an election using ranked-choice voting. so, what is ranked-choice voting? in march of 2002, san francisco voters adopted a charter amendment to implement ranked-choice voting, also known as the instant run-off voting.

san francisco voters will use ranked-choice voting to elect most local officials by selecting a first-choice candidate in the first column on the ballot, and different second- and third-choice candidates in the second and third columns respectively. this makes it possible to elect local officials with a majority of votes, more than 50%, without the need for a separate run-off election. in san francisco, ranked-choice voting applies to the election of members of the board of supervisors, the mayor, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney, treasurer, assessor-recorder, and public defender. ranked-choice voting does not apply to elections for local school board and community college board members, nor the election of state or federal officials. ranked-choice voting does not affect the adoption of ballot

measures. when voters receive their ballot, either at a polling place or as an absentee ballot in the mail, it will consist of multiple cards. voters will receive cards that contain contests for federal and state offices, as well as for state propositions and local ballot measures. for ranked-choice voting contests, voters will receive a separate ranked-choice ballot card. the design of the ranked-choice ballot card and the instructions to rank three choices are new. the ranked-choice ballot is designed in a side-by-side column format that lists the names of all candidates in each of the three columns. when marking the ranked-choice ballot, voters select their first-choice candidate in the arw pointing to their choice. for their second-choice, voters select a different candidate in the second column by completing the arrow pointing to their choice.

for their third-choice, voters select a different candidate in the third column by completing the arrow pointing to their choice. voters wishing to vote for a qualified write-in candidate for any of their three choices can write in a candidate's name on the line provided and they must complete the arrow pointing to their choice. keep in mind a voter should select a different candidate for each of the three columns of the ranked-choice ballot card. if a voter selects the same candidate in more than one column, his or her vote for that candidate will count only once. also, a voter's second choice will be counted only if his or her first-choice candidate has been eliminated and a voter's third choice will be counted only if both his or her first- and second-choice candidates have been eliminated. we have talked about how to mark the ranked-choice ballot. now let's look at how ranked-choice voting works.

initially every first-choice vote is counted. any candidate who receives a majority, more than 50% of the first-choice votes, is determined to be the winner. if no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, a process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes begins. first, the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes is eliminated from the race. second, voters who selected the eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their vote transferred to their second choice. third, all the votes are recounted. fourth, if any candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, he or she is declared the winner. if no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, the process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes is repeated until one candidate has a winning majority.

in this example, we have three candidates: candidate a, candidate b and candidate c. in this example, we have three candidates: candidate a, candidate b., and candidate c. after all the first-choice votes are counted, none of the three candidates has received more than 50%, or a majority of the first-choice votes cast. candidate a has received 25% of the votes, candidate b has received 40% of the votes, and candidate c has received 35% of the votes. . because no candidate received a majority, the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes, candidate a, is eliminated from the race. voters who picked candidate a as their first-choice candidate will have their vote transferred to their second-choice candidate. of the voters who picked candidate a as their first choice candidate, 15% chose candidate b as their second-choice candidate and 10% chose candidate c as their second-choice candidate.

these votes are then applied to candidates b and candidate c and the votes are recounted. we see now that candidate b has 55% of the votes and candidate c has 45% of the vote. candidate b now has more than 50% of the votes and is determined to be the winner. thank you for watching. we hope that you have learned more about ranked-choice voting and who is elected using this method. you have seen the ranked-choice ballot, learned how to correctly mark it, and learned how the ranked-choice voting process works. if you have any further questions about ranked-choice voting, please contact us at: department of elections, city hall, room 48, 1 dr. carlton b. goodlett place, san francisco, california 94102.

call us at: 415-554-4375. visit our web site at: ww supervisor wiener: what we have here is a very important

project and a very important mission and a completely reasonable objection of neighbors who are concerned about a five-story building going in on their block, which is something we see in san francisco all the time, and there is nothing exceptional or inappropriate about people taking issue with the size of a building. i grow up in the philadelphia area, in new jersey, went to school up and down the east coast. i went to undergrad at duke university and law school at harvard. after clerking for a judge, i came out here and have been in here for the last 14 years. i always assumed i would go back to the philadelphia area because that is where my family is, but i was always interested in sanford cisco in terms of the city, culture, the amazing lgbt community -- i was always interested in san francisco. i am an attorney.

i started off in private practice, doing complex litigation. in 2002, i moved to the san francisco city attorney's office, where our work on the trial team, doing trials for the city and doing my own cases and supervising a team of attorneys as well. another huge issue confronting the city is the deferred maintenance on our infrastructure. we have a lot of infrastructure that has been deteriorating because we have not maintained it properly, from our roads to our sewer system to muni. we need to be much more diligent about maintaining our infrastructure. i have been interested in politics since i was a kid. i have worked on campaigns since i was a teenager. i was involved in campaigning against senator jesse helms when i was in college. when i came out here i was not initially involved politically.

i was involved in community work, helping to build the lgbt community center, doing neighborhood work, and i eventually started doing campaigns and gradually got more involved in democratic party politics. ultimately, in 2004, i ran for the democratic county central committee and ended up chairing the committee. it was a gradual process for me. by the time i started thinking about running for supervisor, it made sense because of my involvement in the community and the politics. i knock on about $15,000 -- i knocked on about 15,000 doors and a huge amount of people. the best way to learn about the city and what people want and what people's concerns are. i feel like i know so much more than before i started campaigning. i am a good liberal democrat.

in the san francisco, miniature spectrum, i am considered pretty middle of the road. one thing about me is i am very independent when it comes to the issues, and i do not vote on party lines. i judge each issue on its merit. we have provided woefully inadequate support for our transition-age youth, and when we do not provide that support, we end up causing other problems. it is not like it disappears. these are our youth, who are here in our community, and we need to make sure we are providing services for them. yesterday, we had a hearing on the dcyf budget, and i was very disappointed with one aspect of the budget, particularly the alt and backs were being eliminated -- that all add-backs were being

eliminated on a number of different subjects. i do not agree with that. i am in discussions with dcyf, and i am is hopeful we will be able to work something out. my predecessor was always committed to making sure funding occurred, and i will continue to do that, so you have an ally in me. the budget is the most eminent issue, and we do have a structural budget deficit in the city, so we need to deal, of course, with the short-term balancing our budget in a way that does not decimate city services that people rely on, but also to address our long- term structural budget deficit, and that means implementing some budget reforms. smooth out our budget process so it is not a boom/bust kind of budget. reforming our pension system and retiree health care system so that they are stable. we do a decent job providing

low-income housing. we do a terrible job providing housing for low or middle class and middle-class people, people who are working and paying taxes that we need to have here for a functioning economy, so i am looking for ways to try to fund that, particularly for essential employees like teachers, nurses, first responders. projects coming up in the city like the renovation of dolores park, which is a once in 50 years opportunity to define what the park is and what changes we want to make to it. that will be a very significant projects. [inaudible] when was the last time it rained? there are puddles. we elect our supervisors by

district, and it is very important to pay attention to the district, to be engaged in projects in the district, but we also represent the whole city. any supervisor that just focuses on the district without addressing the citywide issues is not doing his or her job. every day, i'd make sure i am working both on the citywide issues and on district issues. >> welcome to "culturewire." for the past year, the arts

commission has been participating in the city's effort to revitalize the central market street corridor. in addition to the thursday arts market and are in store front, the art commission recently launched the artery project. for the next year, the artery project will bring energy and excitement to market street, recalling the st.'s heyday as san francisco's vibrant and bustling theater district. >> un.n plaza during business hours seize hundreds of passing office workers and students, but the activity winds down at 5:00 every day. theater productions bring some but traffic, but central market is more of a thoroughfare than a destination after the sun goes down. on december 9, the artery

project's launch brought a party atmosphere to market street, led by mayor gavin newsom, city officials flipped the switch on three new art installations that light up the st.'s architecture. a looping a video at 1119 market street was the first words to be some -- the first work to be seen that evening. before the unveiling, the director of cultural affairs spoke to artist jim campbell about the concepts behind bourbon reflection and how he created the work. >> i'm really excited to have your installation on public view starting today here on market street. you created a site-specific work. can you talk about that? >> yes, i looked at two or three different locations, and this one seemed the best. i work with customer electronics, so indoors seemed the best for the work. i also like how close it was 2

market street itself. it is only about 10 feet away, so i chose this location. >> what is the duration? if someone were to stand in front of your installation today. >> at the moment, it is 12 minutes, but i've been thinking about adding footage over the time because it is going to go through a couple of seasons. >> could you describe a little bit in terms of what your creative process is? >> it is a curtain, and image made up of a curtain, so it is very valuable, and the idea was to use this technology that i've been using for the last 10 years, low resolution imagery, to reflect market street back to the pedestrians walking by. the reason that it kind of works in this environment is that you see people walking by. you see cars going by. you see buses going by, but you cannot help we the people are because it is low resolution. you cannot see their faces. you can see the way they walk.

you might be able to tell the kind of car going by. >> what do you think passersby will experience? >> i was thinking it was going to be a test of the success of the work if people stop and look. i have noticed in the last few nights that people do stop and look. a certain percentage. one of the things i was playing with was the ambiguity of whether it is alive or not, so people walk by, and they might even move like this back and forth, thinking that they are in the image, and they realize that it is a daytime shot, and that kind of thing. >> thanks for being part of life on market street. >> my pleasure. >> after the lighting of urban reflection, mayor newsom led the party to the corner of seventh street. lighting the way down the street were members of the filipino cultural center's youth program, carrying traditional core role lanterns. on the side of the resort hotel

is a projection titled "storylines." working with students from the art commission writer's corps program, paul organized a series of images with text captions. they will change every evening until a different -- and tell a different story. one block away, theodore watson has created an interactive installation that crosses over six street. spaces' begins with a photo capture station on the north side of the street that projects your face on to a building on the south side of the street. on opening night, the installation was an immediate hit with the crowd. we talked with the or what said about his remarkable installation. >> what inspired you to create this interactive piece? >> the work i typically do is

kind of interactive installations or both indoor and also outdoor and public space. for me, what i'm most interested in is how we can use technology to make the city, which is typically quite a static environment architecturally speaking -- how can we make it come alive? >> what i love about your work is there is such sophisticated software and electronics and complex connections that all have to work together to make it successful, but yet, all of that is invisible to the people interact with the work. >> they do not realize there is all these cables and projectors and computers and all this technology behind the scenes, and if you can keep it hidden, it feels like a really magical moment. to me, that is what is inspiring, and that is what makes the public, their eyes light up. >> you feel a little bit like the wizard of oz? >> totally, yes. >> having been on market street

for a while and seeing how the public is reacting to your piece, what is your impression of what it is going to be like here? >> i'm already loving it. just the fact that i can look up and see someone seeing how crazy it is, and i have been bumping into people in the street who are recognized only from their portrait. i'm hoping that people will provide a slightly more friendly way to look at each other in this neighborhood. >> it is helping to reinforce and create a sense of neighborhood. so we want to thank you for being part of this project and thank you for bringing "faces" to san francisco. >> the artery project will have installations on market street until june 2011. this revitalization initiative is funded by the national endowment for the arts in an effort to transform market street into a