i think is appropriate to see how that plays out. i would do away with the entire system and have the primaries after labor day and the general election would be the runoff election. having said that, i think it would be appropriate to look at the first two measures that would eliminate ranked-choice voting altogether for citywide offices and have the primary again in september and the runoff election when you have the highest turnout in the general election. or the proposal to do the same for the mayor's race. i do not think we should be returning to runoff elections -- that is about the only thing i agreed with that then.

this system has worked in new york for years. i think it can work in san francisco. president chiu: next speaker. >> good afternoon. i am here to speak on behalf -- [inaudible] i am here to speak on behalf on the executive -- president chiu: we are having a hearing on ranked-choice voting. we will have general comments, so that would be the appropriate time -- i'm sorry, a -- >> that is the asian american action fund.

they strongly support ranked- choice voting and support the common sense proposal to fine tune it may laurel alexians -- mayoral elections. ranked-choice voting has made it possible for asian-americans to elect representatives of their choice, a precious right guaranteed by the u.s. and california voting rights act, but the u.s. and california constitutions. asian-american communities though it was often fragmented between several candidates, which made it difficult for asian-american candidate to qualify for the runoff. after the city adopted ranked- choice voting, representation in

city government has more than doubled. by enabling residents to vote in a single november election, ranked-choice voting has maximized voter participation. for this reason, we staunchly oppose any effort to move the city elections to september. we strongly urge you to place the proposal on the ballot. i have been following the recent discussion in the news media. i've also heard that some progress as do not like ranked- choice voting. i am a progressive and i know that ranked-choice voting was not designed to guarantee

progress of the winners. no election system should. [no audio] president chiu: next speaker, please. >> i would like to speak to three proposals before you. there are three questions you have to address related to those proposals. whether to have two separate elections in competitive mayoral races. whether to have -- whether to when to have those two elections. how to pick some of the first election candidate to go on to the second election. i think the board president's proposal takes the right approach to the third question. all the proposals before you get it wrong on the second question of when to have the two rounds.

you should not robb voters of the chance to give a thoughtful answer to the first question. by having tying that choice into flawed proposals for how to implement. there are three years until the next mayoral election. i urge you to put off the decision, it gets it right, and gets a proposal that makes the real decision. thank you. >> next speaker. >> i apologize for appealing to say my name when i came before you last week.

i am a tremendous supporter of ranked-choice voting. i would be heartbroken if the board of supervisors or to eliminate ranked-choice voting entirely from the city. especially having just listened to the previous discussion, which reminded me and emphasized how very far we are from -- what is considered one of the most progressive cities in the united states. ranked-choice voting is sorely needed. the previous discussion did not make it clear. i would ask that if we want a second click -- a second look,

that the amendment be adopted as an amendment that could give us a second local. the olague amendment might be considered -- i would consider that very complicated and difficult. it is mostly the conservatives to show up and have the time to show up for a reluctant -- september elections. do not eliminate ranked-choice voting. the chiu is the one. thank you so much. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hello, i'm going to take my

glasses off. i have been voting since 1980. i have voted for 31 years. i want you to add an amendment, you know they need housing, you know they need jobs. this would be a good way to tell president obama, lets everyone vote this year. it would be a good way to have a census on who is here. when bush was in there, it was 350 people in this county, in the nation. now it is 310 million. let's of voting be a national

way to know who is in america. that would cover all diversity. if you are going to add more, let the president know this is a good way to know who is going to be voting. i think this is a good thing. make sure you add another amendment to it. happy tuesday. green votes for everyone. we all havegreen hearts. we have already voted for that medical marijuana initiative. thank you. >> next speaker. >> thank you, supervisors. two of these alternatives are backed by the san francisco

chamber of commerce because big money does not have enough influence in the city hall already. two of these alternatives will help decide the mayor's race with a very low turnout september election. one of the problems with san francisco democracy is too many people are voting. two of these alternatives will allow the mayor's office to be won with even fewer votes than the last two mayoral contests. because all that matters is the percentage. two of these alternatives will help decide the mayor's race within unrepresentative september election. too many people of the wrong kinds of people are voting. two of these alternatives will give voters the task of eliminating 14 add of 16 candidates, but restrict those voters to marking only one choice. for san francisco voters, marking a back of choice is not

just confusing, it is weird. they do not do it in idaho. two of these alternatives will increase spoilers, both as an unintended consequences of competitive politics, but also as a political dirty trick. today's alternatives will greatly increase the number of -- two of these alternatives will greatly increase the number of exhausted of votes. we can hide our eyes and pretend that is not what they are. which of the supervisors will vote for paychecks and pink slips from the chamber of commerce and other sources of big money? thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> greetings. i am very against ranked-choice voting. i am afraid there has been a lot of misinformation passed to you about the september primary. i think it is bogus.

you probably have all heard that new york, charlotte. let me show you those two. i want to show he was "the new york times" was saying about that september primary in new york that we have heard so much about. "what a primary season it has not thbeen. it has been a virtual afterthought. he has run a very low-key campaign with no television advertising. the republican candidate tdid nt even appear in that election. " that is the first one on the list.

i have the data for charlotte. i do not have time for it. it is almost exactly the same thing. my belief on this whole thing, you have to do something. ed lee got 75,000 votes. that was enough for him to get a 60% slam-dunk majority mandate. there is no room for an algorithm anywhere in this thing. it is creepy. it is like the beginning of a bad political novel. it was designed for a different type of candidate. that is going to tell us to the mayor is. it is creepy. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> supervisors, good afternoon.

i has been a polling place inspector in san francisco over 10 times for the past six years. the question on my mind is as follows. we all know merrill primary will be much higher turnout if it is held in november. we all know this. we also know that if the runoff involves the mayor's race, a december runoff will have an even higher turnout than november. supervisors on both sides acknowledge this and have done so publicly in this room. why are we still considering a mate only september proposal? -- a mirror only september proposal? why not switch it to december? september is the opposite. for example, why is it that the voter turnout numbers for september municipal elections are not being looked at or discussed? other cities use september.

the numbers are very low, on the order of 20%. if the proponents disagree, why haven't been mentioned in the turnout numbers? if the september primary will be on the ballot, voters deserve to have the options. it would not be fair to put only the september proposal on the ballot because voters would be forced to vote for a low turnout primaries. it does not have to be that way. why not give voters a choice? but both on the ballot and let the voters decide if they would rather have a low turnout elections in september or a high turnout november-december combination? thank you. president chiu: next speaker. >> linda chapman. i urge you to get rid of all ranked-choice voting. the center, the better. -- sooner, the better.

people had no idea. they had no idea whether it would be first, second, third. it made it extremely difficult to do the follow-up. that is one thing. i do not think anybody understands it. i did not even understand it. i got deleted from san francisco state with highest honors and -- i graduated from san francisco state with highest honors ended years of graduate studies. if i didn't understand it, don't you think people will get frustrated? they do not want to spend all of their time. i was given to understand that you could vote for who you pleased first and then you could vote for people who were good

community people. it only matters if you put them as your first vote, which i certainly could not do. and then what? i was deprived of the vote. i did not get a chance to vote for supervisor avalos. we had a candidate who came in who wiped out many qualified people. i would certainly have been happy in the end, you know, to live at a choice. i go back -- to have had a choice. i go as far back as the nixon and johnson. it really matters that you have a choice in the end. it really matters whether people are chosen. president chiu: thank you very much. >> i would like to speak out

against the adoption of any sort of special election where we know we will have a low voter turnout. the whole point is to make sure that we have a stronger mandate for who we elect. there is no way to get a stronger mandate than to have a higher turnout. the best way to have a higher mandate -- a higher turnout is to have ranked-choice voting. we know that the december primary does not work. it is a known problem that we have solved and we do not need to create the problem again. i also want to speak against the adoption of the september primary election. not only is there going to be a low turnout, but the boats will be split many ways. we will have candidate with a 10

or 11% of the vote advancing to the runoff election. he will get a second vote of two candidates who may be freaks or not the best choices. that means only 20% have spoken in the overall election. i want to reiterate that ranked- choice voting has worked really well. despite the voices you have heard that it is confusing, we've had more people vote for ranked-choice voting successfully done by other methods. let's not mess with it. we know it works. we need to think through any possible amount of decisions we are making. thank you.

president chiu: next speaker, please. >> supervisors, good afternoon. i ran as one of the 16 candidates in the last election and i was shocked to about how wise it spent 6000 and people spent 1.5 billion. there is something wrong with ranked-choice voting. i do not know exactly what it is, at but confusion is one major issue. you should not make any changes until we find out what the ethics commission on how they will vote on merrilies -- mayor lee's unethical conduct in the last election. i think we had up to 15,000

ballots like that. ranked-choice voting was one problem, but the way these elections are held in the city and county is another problem. you cannot put a billboards, you cannot put up signs. people -- is almost as if the system is reaigged. i can tell you one person who got exactly the same amount of votes as the mayor. he never appeared in public. ranked-choice voting is a problem because it confuses the public at large. if the public is confused, they cannot vote properly. we saw that at ranked-choice voting, and we will see it again if that continues under the same mandate. it does need some changes.

i would not make any changes until we find out what the ethics commission's final vote on the mayor's problem with the last election. there was blatant voter fraud. thank you for your time. president chiu: next speaker. >> several opponents of ranked- choice voting have mentioned new york city and they say new york city september turnout is not that bad, but they have not told us that new york has been having partisan primaries in september for 100 years. new york state, they have elections every calendar year. new yorkers are very used to voting in september. and there turnout is not that good. that tells me are september turnout will be a lot worse. as far as confusion, if the

voters of london, england, can choose their merit and have a very good election, cambridge, mass., has been using it for 80 years, minneapolis likes it, are the voters in the city's smarter than san franciscans? i do not think so. president chiu: next speaker. >> i am the president of the harvey milk democratic club. i am here to talk about how we feel that ranked-choice voting obviously offers a greater voice in local elections. i know for a fact that i joined the ranked-choice voting cesspool of six and ended up being able to change the dialogue and bring a different voice to the front of that race.

that is something that would not be able to happen as readily without ranked-choice voting. to replace it -- to change the way we do something just for the mayor's race, if you are talking about confusion, having two different ways of collecting officials is definitely a problem. i hear a lot that ranked-choice voting is too difficult to understand. i only had a year of college and i'm pretty comfortable with ranked-choice voting. i find it very easy to understand. >> good afternoon. i am president of californians for electoral reform. i wish the supervisors would pay

attention to the public at this hearing the same way the public has been paying attention to the supervisors. i will not repeat what i said last time. i will focus on the politics. politics is the art of compromise. in a compromise, neither side gets everything that they want. ranked-choice voting supporters get a november election. at least it determines which two candidates have the most support. people like a runoff elections, they would get a head-to-head contest in december. that would allow people to have a clear debate on the issue and compare and contrast the candidates. even the chamber of congress -- chamber of commerce would get what they want. they can spend an unlimited

amount of money attacking the candidate they like the least. it is a compromise. i see the proposal as a win-win situation. i hope he will vote to put it on the ballot -- i hope you will voted to put it on the ballot. i do not know if the elections department has weighed in on the proposal. if they have any concerns, we're positive they can be addressed by 2015 without any chartered changes. >> good afternoon, board of supervisors. ♪ how sweet it is to be voting for you

i needed the shelter of your city arms there you were i needed someone to understand mys ups and downs it's you not your wealth i want to stop and thank you and rank you, baby how sweet it is to be voting for you good luck on this motion i wanna stop and rank you, abby -- baby it's like sugar to the voting

beat it's like sugar sweet how sweet it is to be voting for you ♪ [laughter] [applause] president chiu: walter, we rank you the number one singer here at the chamber. >>, and a 50-year citizen of san francisco. -- i am a 50-year citizen of san francisco. i am of a different opinion. i expect the same courtesy.

talking about minority representation or diversity. in the dictionary, when you see diversity, that should be a picture of an african-american person. i did not hear one of the speaking of diversity say anything about costs. -- about us. there are some communities that did not do much. i have nothing against them. when you think of diversity, i do not want to hear any of you zero momit -- humans and women, women are not a minority. --