supervisor kim: welcome to the special meeting of the rules committee. our clerk is one olinda wong. we would also like to thank sfg tv him records the meeting and makes the transcript's available. >> please turn off all cell phones and electronic devices. speaker cards and include any documents to be part of the file. acted -- items act upon will appear on the june 26 supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. item number one, a charter amendment to amend the ciardi of -- charter of the city and county of san francisco by amending round-off elections.

supervisor farrell: thank you. thank you for being here today. item number one, a charter amendment for the 2012 ballot. it seeks to take away voting for this city offices of around san francisco. rank boating will continue in supervisor races. i want to thank my colleagues to a join me today as co-sponsors of this charter amendment. supervisor of lolague, cohen, and wiener. i know we've had a lot of debate about this, but speaking again to explain why i brought this forward. first of all, this has not

really lived up to its promises that were originally articulate it. one of the initial things is it would promote a lot less negative campaigning in city politics. i think if you look at the 2011 mayor's race, one would be hard- pressed to argue it was not a ton of negative campaigning going on. second, promote higher voter turnout. obviously in some alexian's there is higher turnout, and some elections there is not, specifically with the runoff between gavin newsom and the mayor here in stamford cisco. for me, more importantly, i do have a number of fundamental issues with rank choice of a boardivoting. the simple majority has the responsibility of -- has the

ability to produce results. last year we had people running around asking for people to get there second and third votes. to me, that is not leadership. i want my city leaders, people coming to voters in saying this is my vision for this office. this is why i would ask for you to vote for me as opposed to running around asking people for their second and third votes. second of all, we talked a lot about this the last time around, the notion of voter confusion. poll after poll, voters will say they're confused by this. to me, i think there is no reason why we should have a voting system in san francisco where voters are confused. i think there is a lot of anecdotal evidence for that. there is also a ton of empirical evidence in the form of over boats and san francisco.

buster's mayor's race had 1% of the votes being tossed in the garbage can because of over votes. -- last year's mayor's race had 1% of the votes being tossed in a garbage can because of over boats. lastly, are run off system allows us, and i think we specifically solve this last year, the ability to have a hard look at candidates. last year i attended a number of the debates. there were 8-10 people on the debate. no real clear choice. people did not want to distinguish themselves from each other. people thought that was really a waste of time because she barely got to hear what people had to say. you got to-three minutes to speak. we want people with real choices to be able to articulate clear visions and have voters understand them. in any case, this charter amendment applies to citywide races only.

i realize there is healthy skepticism. there is help the opposition to this initiative. there is also healthy support. i appreciate all of that, but i appreciate that we have this meeting today. i appreciate my colleague summit today for the special meeting so we can put it forward to the board. with that, -- >supervisor campos: thank you. i want to thank supervisor farrell for his comments. i have a lot of respect for supervisor farrell, but on this one i will respectfully disagree. i sank of that the discussion is one where i think a lot of assumptions and allegations are made about a specific voting system and the more you look

into the specifics of what is alleged, the more you see the data in fact does not support some of the assumptions. noah voting system is perfect. ranked joyce boating hazards issues, but as has been demonstrated and the discussion we of had, not only here, but also at the local agency formation system, it has many benefits and the affordable but have been afforded to this have not materialized. in fact, the issue of voter turnout is one where you can see the benefits of rank choice boating, and when it comes to confusion, the data does not support the conclusion that rank choice of voting is the worst system you can have. in fact, the level of

competition is -- that is in some of the other races that is taking place in san francisco, whether it is the board of education or city college shows there is more confusion around those and a higher rate of error then there is with frank choice voting. no system is perfect, and the answer is to implement a system the best way possible, and the issue where i think word -- workmates to be done is on the issue of education. i do have a number of concerns about what is being proposed. i think the top two primary concept is one that creates its own set of problems. in fact, if you look at some of love -- we got information from steven hill who has been doing great work around these issues

for many years and has articulated and outlined the many problems that come with the top two primary systems. one of which is the turnout. you just saw an example in this past primary election in san francisco where you have among the lowest turnout we have had in quite some time, 30%. it is an issue that became more problematic for certain neighborhoods that were disproportionately impacted by that. i think the goal should be to have a system that maximizes boater involvement and voter turnout, and i think sad ring choice of voting has been able to do that. i also think there are practical questions that arise in terms of the ability of the election

department with limited resources to implement some of the things that are being proposed, and i think instead of talking about how we get rid of the system, that we should focus on how we make the system better, and i'd think focusing on that will give us better outcome, because i do think what is being proposed is even more susceptible to some of the criticisms that have been leveled against rank choice but boating, whether it is in terms of voter turnout, but actually the number of over boats that have happened and some of the top two primary elections shows the problems are there as well. i do not think replacing the system with something that may have even more problems is the way to go. i will respectfully disagree with what has been proposed, and

i would ask my colleagues to protect the system we have, and to the extent we make any changes, the change should be to making it better and enhancing voter outreach and voter turnout. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. i think we have probably heard the comments of our colleagues on this issue, and i have certainly spoken my thoughts on brinrank voice boatichoice voti. i am highly supportive of the system we have now. i understand a lot of education has to occur for a voter to understand any new system, but i believe when we look at most of the office races with supervisors and other city-wide races that what we of found is a

system that i believe works and are able to generate one election with the vast majority turning out to vote for a number of different issues, whether it is about it -- ballot initiatives or a number of different offices. that has encouraged healthy dialogue and far more positive campaigning than what i have seen in the past. i think negative campaigning will always occur. to be able to determine whether there has been less or more, i think there has been far less, but of course as you hear the election date, that is one of the negative issues. from my perspective, i think without a runoff election, we limit it down to the last two weeks or last week of the election. certainly in my race the negative campaigning did not begin until the weekend before the actual general election. what i have stated publicly at the last board meeting is i am

open to the concept of us moving into a different type of system for the mayor's race. i stated that, because i want to be consistent that one of the principles i am looking at as we determine an election system is what generates the highest turnout. what generates the highest engagement in the democratic process, and with every board of supervisors race, what we've seen is a runoff there is far less turnout in the december elections been in the november election, but the one that race that differs is the mayor's race. we actually have increased turnout and the december runoff verses the election because of the status that is citywide, and i think the attention it generates. i think voters are motivated to come out more than once to vote for this office. that is where i left myself open to dialogue.

i certainly do not think that holds true for the city attorney public defender, sheriff, and district attorney races and would not support as having to elections for them. the other factor is cost. conducting multiple election cycles in the year. i think if we're not able to increase this, we should not run up more alexians the necessary to get in canada elected. this represents boaters desires in terms of food there would like to see an office. -- voter's desires in terms of who they would like to see in office. i do have questions on the september primary. i am curious to have the 65 percent signed never came forward, how that was formulated in terms of winning a primary out right verses what we currently have with the top two, or if we did an rcv.

that is one question i did have, and i do not know if you want to move to public comment, and then have discussion about that, but those are some of the issues i wanted to bring forward today. >>supervisor farrell: i appreciate the comments. well-anticipated, but appreciate that as well. i want to welcome the people here for public comment. all of the rank choice of voting advocates. dice to see you again. we can open up the floor for public comment, i have a number of speaker cards. please line up on the other side. i will call in number of names. jones strasser, donimick paris, erik brooks, and adirien.

so first one, joan. please come up to the podium. we two minutes for everyone to speak on public comment. >> i would like to speak specifically to the comment you made about your discomfort about being no. 2. for me, it is a great relief to be at the number two, if i want to choose number-one who has a slight chance of winning. a member of the green party and generally hesitated to vote for green in the elections where i think they have a very small chance of winning for exactly the reason that they have a small chance, and i would rather vote for the lesser of two evils.

you are giving people a really fair chance to get their inner- most needs established, to book their conscious and the person they would like to have to increase the number one focus of someone they are not certain that will be very popular, and you also feel assured if they cannot have the person elected they would like to see elected, that they get to see someone elected that they would like to see an office. i feel opposite from the way you do. i hope you take that into account. thank you. >> hello, supervisors. i am happy to be here to not support ring tories voted. i am not here to support your amendment. i am here to advocate for score boardivoting.

you get to reach each of the candidates on a simple, arbitrary score of 0-4. you add up the sum total, and a person with the most votes wins. it is pretty simple. this is a list of organizations that are currently using score voting, although they do not advocate it. i am pleased to report, at the end of the month they will use core voting for the endorsement process. it has the benefits of both, but the detriment of either of the systems. it is extremely easy to understand. and there is precinct counting. like irv, it can be done without a runoff, but it can be done with the run of. those are different qualitative decisions. it also has other additional benefits. for example, you could always

vote your favorite, even under the most to check of instances, and the has less physical ballot space, which will cut down on costs of what you usually need, and it will only find the center of the constituent of the spectrum that your constituency is in. besides the qualitative reasonings, we also have quantitative ones. this was developed by princeton math ph.d., warren smith, but essentially like a golf score where lower is better. it measures how satisfied the voters are with the system. the best in storm runoff voting. i advocate to get in amend. think very much. >>hank you very much. >> richard winger.

i i hav i have been a poll worker for years. they work for very low money. there is a problem that these core of people will get exhausted, especially under the proposal in that gubernatorial years. we would have elections in june and september and november, and it is not just the poll workers, but a whole army of city employees who are out in the field helping them. i feel it is expensive and not worth the money. >> thank you very much. next speaker. take my name is jim lindsay. thank you for doing this in the summer. when i heard about this, my gut reaction was a late april fool's

joke or something. we will really have more elections? that is what we need? i tried to find out what the cost was. the lowest i have seen as 3.3 million. the highest number was 4.2 million. split the difference, because advocates always go high, and people always sort of fudged a little bit toward their side unintentionally, but that is what they do. i, to 3.7 5 million. that is my best guess to reality. -- i came out at 3.75 million. really? what happened at the end september primary? i would guess 25-30% of the people will come out and vote, because it really does not mean anything and everyone will know that, except which people are going to be in the final, and i

will vote because it is owed, but most people are not like that. i think it is a special election, and people do not show up to special alexian's very much. also, the main it campaign will be in san the negative. so that is just what is going to happen, and we all know that. it is also agreed to be very expensive. i was a fund-raiser for an election that when to run off, and there was almost a divorce. it is really hard on the people. it is really hard on the candidates to have the extra elections. we do not need it. let's keep what we have, make it better with the education. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors.