items to committee. president chiu: supervisor c ampos has made a motion, seconded by supervisors mar. did you -- supervisor wiener, do you want to speak to the motion? supervisor farrell: i have more items to share, but specifically to the motion -- let's be fair about what this motion is. the proponents of ranked choice of voting have been walking the halls and talking publicly, they don't want this on the june ballot because they don't like the voter turnout that will be

in june. they prefer it to be in november because they see more turn out and they say in public debate with me that we want a more progressive turnout in november. if we're going to send something back to committee, let's be honest about why we're doing it. that is what the proponents have been very clear about. just as a reminder, ranked joyce voting, when it was established by the election was not it -- by the electorate, it was not in an election. it was when we had march elections, march of 2002. it was good enough for the proponents then, but now they're not feeling control what their odds. i will take him for his word on the surface that we need more statistics and analysis. this has been in from is not just for the last six months, it has been infamous for the last 10 years. i'm not sure what more we need to discuss.

i appreciate looking at data, with all due respect, what more dated do we really need? usf has been a great steady in the department of elections has done studies and we can interpret data for the next three months or the next three years. the data we need to make a decision is in front of us and i really, truly believe that -- let's be honest what this is. this is simply a delaying tactic. with the voted up or down today. it doesn't need to go to committee. you're not comfortable voting for, don't vote for it. let's have our vote today. president chiu: as to the motion -- is there anyone else who would like to speak? i'm not going to delay any names on the roster. why don't have a roll call vote on the motion? >> [roll-call role brought --

roll-call] their arefour ayes and seven nos. supervisor olague: i think that question in front of us, at least for me, is not whether it's progress of our not progressive or whether there's a more progressive turn out in november or not. in my mind, there is some need for evaluation and reform as it relates to ranked choice of voting. part of what i have heard is that there is confusing him --

confusion among voters as relates to ranked choice voting. the proposal that supervisors campos and avalos have made about educating the voters -- i think there might still be a need to discuss reform as it relates to other aspects of our cv will become how to vote, but when to vote. i think people are confused about how to vote. if we have another september date, people will be confused about when they vote, so they will have the june election, the september election, and the november election. i think that's putting too much burden on the public. i think the reason part of the discussion in my mind was raised about rcv had to do with the

fact we wanted to ease the burden. to me, all this does is add the burden of another day. to people who are already overwhelmed in many ways by this issue. the last election turnout was before the mayor's race was up 42.47. that's not very high. that's less than 50% of those who are eligible to vote who actually made it to the polls. as long as rcv is in place, that we have more education of people understand how to vote, i'm open to having discussions about how to reform rcv or not, to come up with some other thing, but to add at the september runoff date is just not the solution at this time.

for that reason, i am open to discussing reform, but i don't think this is the right solution for where we are with this. it just adds more burden to the public and for that reason, i do not support it. supervisor wiener: thank you. it's interesting because when supervisor farrell and elberend talked about the appeal, there was a lot of discussion about the runoff and there was a talk about a drop in turnout from november to december and it's over the thanksgiving holiday, and all these problems associated with the december runoff and we have all been involved with a december runoff that we can all agree there are not pleasant to go through.

the idea of doing september and november, i suggested that -- i suggested it publicly and they accepted the suggestion and my thinking was in that run off, you make sure you maximize turnout to have the runoff in november when you have the highest turnout. a lot of other jurisdictions to september as the primary. maybe some have gotten rid of them. they're still very, very common but if we did the global research on turnout in december primaries across the country, i will bet you they are not all in the 4% or 11% range supervisor campos read to us. i'm sure there are a june primary elections that are horrible turn out, but ultimately, november will be a higher turnout. putting that aside, there were a lot of ideas floating around, maybe we should do june and a

november runoff or we should do rcv to get down to two candidates for a runoff. i was very clear with the advocates i spoke with that whether we do september, november, june -- even rcv to get to a top two in november, i would be open to that. but nobody actually came forward and propose that. we are talking, talking, talking. that does not give me a lot of confidence we will ever get to that point with even a modified version that might be more acceptable to some people. so we're still left with these two proposals and i think if anyone was going to make that kind of change, there is plenty of time to do it and that's why did not support sending the referral back to committee. today, i will be voting in favor of the proposal. i just want to briefly explain why. there are a lot of objections

people raise around voter confusion and related issues. that's not my objection. i think over time, we've seen increased understanding of rcv and i think that will increase over time. a new election system has a learning curve. my objection is that we have created a system where only the most hyper engaged voters who spend a lot of time focusing on these things are ever really going to know when you have eight, 10, 12 can't its what distinctions are among those candidates. -- 12 candidates know the distinctions among the candidates. for the voters to have a million other things going on in life where this is not their top priority in doing research, it is very challenging to know with that many candidates who stands for what.

the newspapers, unfortunately, do not have the capacity anymore to really cover that and parceled out in a way you can when you have two candidates. -- parse it out any way you can we have two candidates. if you look at 1999 and 2003, those runoffs set the city on fire. whether you were for willie brown or gavin newsom, it was narrowed down to two very different people with very different visions for the city. residents knew what they wanted for their vision and who to support an or exciting elections and galvanized the grass roots of this city on both sides. for years and years to come, how many people came out for each of those may world races completely energize and into politics? i don't think we will ever see that again if we have this past

mayors race as some sort of example of what they're going to see with that are 15 candidates are maybe seven rate arguably viable, everyone moving to the middle of the few exceptions of candidates of making -- and it to make a point of knowing how people stand and people not knowing what the distinctions are. there are a lot of different ways we can hold elections and and not saying this one proposal is the only way to do it, but in terms of what we have now, this is superior and that's why i will be voting for it. supervisor mar: i don't know if you know, but i was active in the 1995 elections task force, which is now the redistricting task force. i always approach these from voting rights and civil rights. i think this proposal is moving us against the grain of more democracy and more diversity in

government. it also will cost $2.6 million more per year to administer. from a voting rights perspective, i think supervised the comment that minority communities would be -- it would help minority communities, but i think it is the opposite. i think there is evidence from a new report that one of my colleagues from political scientist and a well-respected political scientists -- he looked at boston's use of these of timber primary alexian's and found strong evidence that the turnout is disproportionately low were in many minority communities, but also latino and african-american district. all of them with the voter turnout that was quite a bit lower for them. when i advocated for rank choice of voting, we call the

preference voting in 2002, we were also looking at the dominance of big money in campaigns, and if you have a september primary and a november runoff, you'll have to raise more money. it was reducing the dominance of money in the different races as well. from the reasons of the voting rights perspective and moving seven cisco and a more democratic direction, i sapota of the proposal by supervisors capmos anmpos and avalos. supervisor avalos: i had a lot of thoughts and the wasn't clear how it was going to start. i am in favor of ranked joyce voting. i saw the trajectory of the debate last year as a

candidate, and it was very interesting. prior to getting into the race, there were editorials and columns until local paper saying that range was voting was not good for san francisco, it was confusing. i felt those editorials before there is much engagement from the electorate was already setting seeds in people's brains about what the election was going to be like. and any characterization of the proponents of bank twice voting believe or feel, there is a great diversity of the people that support re choice of voting, it is not just people that are progressive. i have perspectives on that that are fairly mixed for. it was a challenge to make sure that voters could see me as something different from other

candidates, but the as a challenge any candidate has, whatever type of election one as sen. you're always trying to make sure that you can present in a way that distinguishes itself from others. the fact that we had 16 main candidates after august and many more of the for that was the same kind of difficulty that the electorate had to do to understand who the candidates were. you still have to do your homework to know who you are going to be voting i don't think that it makes it that much more complicated. voters know where to get their source of information about how to make their choice of round elections. have seen the distinction between the mayor's race. there have been exciting ruboffs

and we have been very interested in the mayor's runoff races and what have traditionally been the turnouts for supervisor races in past years. a month low were turned out for the supervisors as a run off. that, to me, there is real caution about whether the would be of majority or not. and the november elections, when voter turnout is high, the problem is that the september election, it is very low. it is not something that is clearly empowering people to think about their participation where they feel majority is having a real say so. of a there are problems on both sides, problems that are all

around. as someone who participated in the big race and got really excited about that, there is a runoff election last november, i would have been involved allied -- and that. in that. i am not sure it is really good for the city either. we will bowed to the people all over again to raise money. they didn't have a lot to give me in the first place. it would be really difficult to be able to accomplish, i think, and run off. after the candidates have exhausted their means to make money, that will determine what

is going to happen. that is what we need to avoid as the city. i think it provides a better read the have discourse in elections. it is not a race that is going to be necessarily fall of a lot of negative campaigning, but there is such a rush when you have that right off, -- runoff, to start developing negative attitudes and it divides the city in a way that i don't think it's healthy for the city. we were able to present ideas to get people excited without having a run off. i would like to be able to continue with frank joyce voting. i believe we have already have the experiment of with and it has worked in a lot of ways. as supervisor campos mentioned,

the great diversity that is on the board of supervisors is a great example of how right choice of voting has been good for the city. last year we had mayor lee when an election with an enormous voter turnout from the chinese community. the story of disenfranchisement i don't believe is the case. they came out in droves to support merely. in my district, there was an office that was empty because they had ever won at the polls already. there is a lot of things that worked with ranked was voting, people voting in droves to support candidates. we were very savvy about how their votes laid out. that is where my vote is going to go today.

i do appreciate the discussion. there is a lot we can do to make sure that our elections are democratic. supervisor elsbernd: i would like to initially responded to a few of the comments that have been used to justify the need to maintain ranked joyce voting. -- rank-choice voting. voter turnout. i think we can cite two examples that run off to produce more turned out. but the least be honest about the numbers. if you took the total votes that avalos and lee got, total votes barely surpassed the total votes gavin newsom got as a

single candidate in the december runoff. we can all use staff to push that. let's not raise the staff i have this that that cuts the deal. one point i would raise as we have been talking about voter turnout in the minority communities. it has become of the of the theoretical question, when you compare the turnout numbers to the actual experiences we had in san francisco, you see that we have a minority turnout, but their votes were tossed out. you might ask yourself the question, what is worse? the voter that doesn't show tup, or one that shows up and because

rank-choice voting is confusing, they're not counted. it's tossed out. the system as it is disenfranchises them. it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. more representative in terms of his body, be very careful with that. the romans that would use that are using the 2000 board of supervisors election as their base. to show that his body is more representative of the 2000 import of supervisors, and that is absolutely true. that is because 2000 was the year district elections got put in place.

what i am getting at, you had two straight white men he'd minorities. district 6. look at the board of supervisors elected in the '90s. we are celebrating today because we have three women. i think that this city would be so much better off today if we had a one month discussion.

the work we do here week to week will be more informed. members of the public would be more informed and i think that we would be a better educated electorate and it would make our job is more challenging and we would produce a better product. you have the power base where you did. the voters on the west side would have been an opportunity to espouse your views, i think you would want that.

i observed a lot of male role debates, the campaign. i would love to have had that discussion, but i bet we would have. rank choice of voting does not allow for that kind of discussion. you have negative campaigning, are we really try to tell ourselves we didn't have a negative campaigning? that with a run off, we had a big money? really? how did we really not have a lot of big money spent. there was plenty of big money spent in an election with ranked joyce voting. let's be honest about this. rank choice of voting does not serve our citizens. runoffs have their problems, but

by and large, when it comes to the essence of democracy and an educated electorate and the final point that supervisor farrell has made so hard, nine are here. supervisor olague has not yet stood for election. a majority of the electorate didn't vote for us. it just is not right. with less than a majority of the electorate voting for them. ranked was voting is a flawed system. runoffs are not perfect, but they are an improvement.

does this need be in the charter? there is nothing in the charter amendment -- it doesn't need to be in the charter. just as a factual point, there is one company that claims they can tell more than three candidates and they can only count 10 right now. the company has not been certified and the last thing we want to do is empower a sole- source contract. by the way, if this makes a

valid, i can't wait to see the campaign reports. i think i know who will fund this campaign. the second pieces that we will do our reach. could lead to a charter amendment for the back ordinance? we did great out reach. supervisor campos has appropriately called at the competitive measure. unless it changes the charter, everything you're trying to talk about you can do without it. supervisor kim: most importantly, unfortunately is not a discussion we have had. we have to have a shared

understanding of what we're trying to accomplish. when is turned out greater? do we have greater turnout with ranked hoyas voting or run off? think we have all showed a bit of both. at least from the data i have seen, the turnout has always decrease -- my guess is that it also decreases for the runoff.