people want to see that one on one. that is a valid statement. it is -- mend it, don't end it. there are big consequences to what your doing and we need to think carefully. even in most of the city races, do you think people are going to come out and vote in december for the treasure or the city attorney? we might because we are passionate in that regard. most people do not. supervisor kim: thank you. >> i am not going to debate ranked-choice voting. i will observe that one of the recent speakers said that a lot of the facts associated in favor of ranked-choice voting have been and continue to be suspect. i want to talk about the nuts

and bolts of ranked-choice voting. when i brought the case to the ninth circuit court of appeals, the judges were clear. it is not a majority system. it is a plurality system and pluralities systems are legal. period. it is a plurality system, not a majority system. if you win a close ranked-choice voting election, the lack of a decisive victory makes you vulnerable for reelection. i would submit that gene kwan is susceptible to this reality. -- jean kwan. she would be in a stronger position. a close election awarded by ranked-choice voting makes the incumbent vulnerable, period. if you're going to have run off, and i participated in a runoff in 2002, if you're going to have

a runoff, i agree. five weeks after the election stinks'. i would submit that you have a runoff on the tuesday before thanksgiving. that gives where the top two candidates are momentum from the election and you can have the thing completed before the holidays and a result that is not influenced by the ability of well-financed campaigns to be able to do the polling and taylor a message that can destroy somebody, which is what has happened in the past. with regard -- i am in favor of the proposition, no. 4 and i am against item 5. if i can say why. with regard to the education, no amount of education would have been able to vet candidates in the election of 2006 and revealed that one of them did not live in san francisco.

supervisor kim: thank you. >> i am a six-year resident of san francisco, i live and work here and i care a lot of -- about democracy. ranked-choice voting is a good system. it creates a choice and allows us to decide in olive -- november when turnout is highest and most representative. it has reserved -- resulted in a diverse board. voter turnout in june averages 40% less than in november and the population skews more conservative, wealthier, and less to first in the city at large. turnout in september would be similar. to give an example of the

effect of having a low turnout elections, i want to give you an example of something that happened prior to ranked-choice voting. in the three years before ranked-choice voting went into effect, there were four times when the winner of the november- december election cycle the turnout in december was so much lower than the winner in december actually got fewer votes than the winner in november, and that november winner was a different candidate. similar problems would occur with a low turnout initial election in june or september. there are a number of positive things we can be doing to improve ranked-choice voting, and these are included in supervisor campos' amendment. it doesn't seem like good policy to consider repealing a system that is working very well and could be better. let's keep san francisco's

elections moving forward and not backwards. turf. supervisor kim: thank you. >> hello. i'm a supporter of ranked-choice voting. helped to get the signatures. spent a lot of time working with voters, explaining to them exactly what it was. once they understood, they had this big ah-ha moment. like wow, this is really cool. i believe it's the same thing now. i think it should be expanded and we should be able to have as many people on as we have running. i think that the problems with so many candidates this time could be dealt with by the financing -- public financing of elections rath erthan through ranked-choice voting. as far as the oakland election,

what they said was basically they didn't want a machine candidate. who was the frontrunner did not win because the voters of oakland did not want a machine candidate. i think that there's a lot to be said for that rather than running a runoff to let something like that be settled. i think it's like everybody says, it's good to save money and by having ranked-choice voting you can avoid the runoff and the low turnout that goes with them, so it is a lot better for democracy and participation. i think the 87% was the amount of people that understood ranked-choice voting. the ones that didn't, i think that a lot of those people probably understood it but are against ranked-choice voting, so

they fudged what they said in the exit pollings. i'm a big fan of it. please don't send me to the streets again. keep it. supervisor kim: thank you. >> supervisors, my name is steve, i'm president for californians electoral reform. we're an organization that supports >> one of the co-authors puts great emphasis on wanting elections decided by a majority vote. he says he was elected by 44% of the folks who cast a ballot in his first election. his predecessor, supervisor hall, was elected in a runoff by

only 31% of the folks who cast a ballot in the first round of that election. and the same is true for most of the other supervisors. the dirty secret of elections is that unless you do what australia does, no election system can guarantee that the winner receives a majority of the vote from everyone who casts a ballot in that election when there are three or more candidates. it's just not possible. this repeal measure would return to a november or december cycle, campaign literature crowding out the holiday cards in our mailboxes, not to mention a tremendous drop-off in turnout, except perhaps every four or eight years when a new mayor is being elected. if you amend it to a june-november cycle, this this spring, the finalists will be chosen by folks motivated to turn out to the presidential primary, not your average san franciscan voter. if you go to a

september-november cycle, who in california votes in september the you want voters to go to the polls three times this year and have the city pay for three elections, june, september, and november? you just voted to eliminate one election every four years, so now you're going to add back four? it makes no sense. so mend it, don't end it. thank you very much. >> good evening, supervisors. thank you for sticking with this. my name is david carr ree, and i'm speaking in favor of keeping ranked-choice voting and against repeating it. there are many reasons to keep ranked-choice voting that people have talked about here today and it's very heartening to see the number of people who have shown up today to speak of that in favor of keeping ranked-choice voting and improving it. one of the problems is -- to the extent that there are problems with ranked-choice voting, very often it is one or two things. either some other factor that's a part of the campaign election

process that is not ranked-choice voting itself, and to the extent that those are problems with things that could be improved, those things should be targeted for improvement rather than repealing ranked-choice voting. the other area that can be a problem is that ranked-choice voting really hasn't been fully implemented yet here in san francisco. and the reason is because of problems with voting equipment. and we have in the pipelines some improved voting equipment that can be used in san francisco, and it would be really -- if there are concerns about too many involuntarily exhausted ballots, that really should be addressed by looking at ways to improve the voting equipment rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. last year, oakland had its first ranked-choice voting elections, and there was some controversy about that.

in large part because of some delayed reporting of ranked-choice voting tallies. and it's heartening to see that in 2011, the director of elections here and his department worked to improve their process so that ranked-choice tallies could be reported more quickly and i think that's where we should target. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you, mr. carey. >> good evening, again, supervisors, eric brooks. the local grass roots organization our city. i want to speak in strong favor of ranked-choice voting and i want to talk about empowerment. first myself as an individual. i am a green. when i go into the voting booth as an individual member of this democracy in the united states, it is massively empowering for me to be able to rank the green

first and not worry about how that's going to affect the possible outcome of the lesser of evils factor in the election. secondly, as a grass roots organizer and a fighter for economic justice, etc., this is incredibly empowering to have r.c.v. for all of us out here that fight year after year all year to protect the environment, put roofs over people's heads, put food in their mouths, and get people to work and protect social justice in this city. when we have to turn out for a second election and burn our resources and burn ourselves out and burn money to fight yet another election for the same couple of candidates that could have been settled by a runoff, that is extremely disempowering

to this city. it means fewer people get fed and housed. it means the environment gets protected less, etc. and finally, i want to talk about empowerment for san francisco democrats, even though i'm a green. i would venture to say that there are very few san francisco democrats who don't look at washington, d.c. and pray that corporations would have much less control of their party. and the way we're going to change that is not to get rid of r.c.v., but to fix it so that eventually r.c.v. bubbles up to the federal level and we can have a way to hold the democratic party leaders accountable to some competition so that san francisco democrats will also be empowered. supervisor kim: thank you, mr. brooks. >> good afternoon, supervisors. steven hill. thank you for holding this hearing and to everyone who turned out to express their

support for what i think is a good system. we can make it better. the thing that really -- in listening to all the testimony and to all of you talking, the thing that really stands out to me is supervisor farrell, you introduced your repeal measure on election day to great fanfare with lots of drama, and yet as of today, you have yet to fill in the blank of what exactly your proposal is. is it a december runoff? is it june? is it september? what is it? and i think the reason why is because you discovered it's really not that easy to figure out the electoral system. there is no perfect electoral system. there are pros and cons to any method. and it's real easy to pick on ranked-choice voting and basically compare it to perfection as you and others have been doing. but when it comes time to actually -- if you get rid of ranked-choice voting, you've got to replace it with something, don't you? that's where it becomes difficult to figure out what's best for san francisco. for example, clearly, you have realized that going back to the

december runoff does not have a lot of support. but if you were to go to a september primary, as now you are flirting with thinking about doing, then that means we would have three elections in five months. in june, september, and november. is that good for democracy? is that good for the voters of san francisco? is that good for the candidates? is that really the best way? if we were to do it in june, that means voter turnout in june is 59% of what it is in november. would candidates be able to win in june? do they have to win in november? these are the questions that you have to resolve if you're really going to repeal ranked-choice voting and put something in its place. i think what you'll discover is that ranked-choice voting, while it isn't perfect and we can make it better, actually has a lot to recommend it and the other alternatives are worth far more than what we're doing now. i wish that we could work together to make this work better, focus on how to make it work better, and how to make san francisco elections work better. i do think that the public

financing aspect of it is also rather key and that we can make that better and there is a probably to do just that. maybe in your comments, some of you can talk about what you're proposing to do to fix the public financing. thank you for your time. supervisor kim: thank you, mr. hill. >> hi. i'm here to cheer on voting. because it's a lot to consider. ranked-choice voting is the runoff election. you don't have to do runoff. we don't want to go back to just two -- they give us diversity. i'll tell you about my voting. in 1979, november of 1979, i did not vote. that was the first time i had the opportunity to vote at 18 and ronald reagan beat jimmy carter. i learned right then i, i have been voting for 31 years. i ran for mayor in 1999 here. i got my eight write-in candidate votes. just give us diversity.

you got your seat maybe by ranked-choice voting because i thought we were going to have a female white lady on the board coming from your districts and she's not here. so that's why i represent. the thing right here, men used to wear dresses before they could afford pants. that's why they call it fancy pants. so this means that we're even. we do not want to go back to the days of the chad. it took them two weeks to count my eight votes. i paid $10 at kinkos to get eight votes in san francisco in 1999. and you know that's a blessing because, you know, today that money should be put where you can make voting easier 24 hours. let's get a vote in, a ranked-choice stadium pavilion where we can go there and be there all the time.

use the money so we can use it. ranked-choice is number one for america. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any other public comment on this item? please come up. please line up if you'd like to speak on this item. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is ang leak maun. this ranked-choice voting has been important to me. i'm to the part where i do want to throw the baby out with the bath water. while i adamantly agree with all the arguments that have been brought before us and the concerns about why we want to cope it, the biggest concern i have is the work i've been doing with district 10 in terms of educating voters.

i've had older black couples, older black people in the senior centers that have told me point-blankly they're not voting because they don't understand how to vote. they don't know how to make it work. they don't know what they're voting for or understand why. after eight years of having ranked-choice voting and we haven't seemed to get the educational piece in place to try and educate voters, i'm trying to figure out what could we do at this point? because i've had people who said they voted for -- like for example, if i had voted for the other part that i think is really frustrating about ranked-choice voting as we have it now, if my choice was joanna or phil, then my vote would have been exhausted and my vote would have been exhausted soon, because the system that we had, i wouldn't have had a vote. so i don't have a voice.

while the system makes a claim it gives the better voice, it doesn't if you don't choose the right candidate. some other ideas have come up in terms of a plural system, where basically if certain people got second or third-choice votes, perhaps it's a better system. but i think we need to take a harder look at ranked choice voting. thank you for your time. supervisor kim: thank you. any other public comment on items number four and five? seeing none, public comment is now closed. supervisor campos? supervisor campos: thank you very much, madam chair. again, i want to thank all the members of the public who have spoken on both sides of the issue. i think it's very good that we're having this discussion. and i recognize that there are different perspectives and not only different perspectives in terms of whether or not to keep

or not keep ranked choice voting, but if you keep it or not keep it, there are some people who actually have different perspectives on what ranked-choice voting should look like, whether it should apply to some races but not others. so i think this discussion is an important one. what i will say from my perspective as someone who introduced this charter amendment along with supervisor avalos is that i think that the goal here is to improve voting and to maximize the number of people from all walks of life who come out and vote and get involved. i think that's the intent of what we're trying to do and i know that's the intent of what supervisor farrell and supervisor else bernd are trying to do. so i think the -- els bernd are trying to do. from my perspective, it is also important for us to look at the public finance piece.

it was something that was alluded to earlier during public comment. we have a companion piece that could also go to voters that tries to address some of the concerns that have been raised about what happened in the last mayor's race. one of those concerns being the number of candidates who were in the race, and there has been talk about the so called zombie candidate. and one of the proposals that's imbedded in what we have put forward and something that we have worked with supervisor kim and supervisor avalos on is the idea of moving up the deadlines by which candidates have to decide whether or not to file as candidates and to remain in the race. that allows candidates more time to know what the field of candidates actually looks like. so that they can have more information and decide early on whether or not they will remain candidates in a campaign. and i think that that's something that could go a long way in addressing some of the

concerns that have been raised about ranked-choice voting. i also believe that it's important for us to recognize that no system of voting is perfect. and i don't know that whether it's ranked-choice voting or a runoff or some it ration of either that anyone is going to be able to stand here or sit here and say that that system is not going to have problems. there are problems. it's a human created system by definition, there will be issues. because why from my perspective, the approach has been to simply say, you know, how do we make this system better? and that's what we're trying to do. and voter education really goes to the heart of what this charter amendment is trying to accomplish. you know, there has been the point about how we are reaffirming the commitment to enhancing the number of choices that are given to voters, and i

believe that to the extent that that's allowed by the technology, we should consider that. but no system is going to work unless we do as good a job as we can in educating the voters about how that system works, which is why a key component of what we're proposing is this idea that we would have an enhanced voter education plan, and we recognize that work has already been done by the department of elections and we appreciate that work and we know that a lot of time and energy and resources went into that, but i also think that we can always do a better job of that and we want to make sure that we see voter participation and voter understanding of the system across the board. the two polls that have actually been taken where voters have actually been asked about their understanding of ranked-choice voting actually shows that the vast majority of those individuals understand the system. doesn't mean that we cannot do a better job.

that's what we're trying to do here. i know there will be amendments that will be introduced with respect to the proposal by supervisor elsbernd and supervisor farrell. i think it's important that we deal with these matters together. to the extent that -- i know that the matters have to be continued, and if that's the case, i think it would make sense for a continuance to apply to both. my hope, though, is that as that happens, as there is a continuance that all of us were working on this issue, again, different perspective but with the same goal, that we use this opportunity to talk about where there is common ground and commonality, that maybe we can work together. one of the things that is clear to me is that the more time we take to do this right, the better. so one of the questions that i do have is whether or not,

including my omit proposal, including the proposal that supervisor avalos and i put forward, whether or not the timing is such that we should move with it for the june election of whether or not we should wait, and that's something that i think all of us need to think about. because with something as complicated as this, we want to make sure we do it right, and i'm committed to making sure that we do it as right as we can. with that, i want to thank again my colleagues and i want to thank members of the public who have come out. supervisor kim: it is my understanding that supervisor farrell will be presenting amendments to item number four. supervisor farrell. supervisor farrell: thank you, madam chair, and thank you supervisor campos for your comments. there has been a lot mentioned in my campaign finance reform.

i think there are a lot of great things in what you're doing. i think our system is going to be improved. hopefully the voters of the board will pass something in that regard. i just want to state for everyone and for the record here some comments about today's discussion and really articulate my belief about ranked-choice voting and why we've put this forward. first of all, the notion of -- and just to set the stage, this isn't -- people view me sometimes in this town as a moderate or progressive thing. that's not it at all. moderates have won and lost, proaggressive aggressives have d progressives have won and lost. i'm the one who offered this legislation and it wasn't because of them. that is not my concern. people like to use that. that's fine. but i'll just tell you the truth. that's not part of it. the fact of the matter is i was

elected with ranked-choice voting. had ranked-choice voting not been this place, i would have been in a runoff. i feel very confident how that would have gone, but i'm sitting here, there's no ulterior motive. i'm an incumbent who will be up for election. ranked-choice voting has been known to be called an incumbent protection act. it doesn't bother me to go into a runoff system. i am not afraid of that. there is no ulterior motives here that people continue to insinuate. the last part, to be clear, that different people have talked about, about voter turnout, there's a lot of comments. i just want to articulate my opinion on it. some people say advocates of ranked-choice voting say it promotes higher voter turnout. averaging back to the 1950's and hasn't produced it. i think it's interesting. the fact of the matter is it doesn't produce higher voter turnout. that's actually factually wrong. in 2003, the runoff for mayor produced over 50% turnout.

the last one was 41%, 4 %. the fact is we had a mayoral election this past year that had almost 10 points -- i think greater than 10 points less turnout than a runoff did in 2003. and what i would suggest is that the excitement that the electorate has over the candidates that are running as opposed to the system itself that produces or affects voter turnout. so in terms of people talk about voter turnout and keep saying it produces higher voter turnout, it doesn't. it's just factually wrong. i'm not saying a runoff system produces higher voter turnout either, although it has in certain cases. i think it's independent of our voting system and i think it has a lot more to do with and almost everything to do with the candidates that are running and how much people are inspired to come out and vote for them. i've talked about it before, but in terms of my desiran