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The Groundhog Day Election in Los Angeles

By Gautam Dutta, Esq.
Deputy Director
Political Reform Program
The New America Foundation

After a fiercely fought primary election, no winner emerged in last week's election in the LA County Supervisor race between City Councilmember Bernard Parks and State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas. With barely one-sixth of all voters participating, millions of dollars spent, and a race that turned increasingly negative, neither Ridley-Thomas nor Parks could muster a majority (50 percent plus one) in the nine-candidate field. As a result, both candidates must now duke it out for another five months until the November general election -- leaving voters in the crossfire of more mudslinging and personal attacks.

According to some political consultants and politicians, runoff elections are good for democracy. In theory, they give voters a “second look” to size up the top two finalists. But in all honesty, how much more will voters learn about Councilmember Parks and State Senator Ridley-Thomas that we don’t already know? What will we learn from another five months of attack mailers and sound bites?

One things we will definitely learn is how low mudslinging campaigning can go. To date, the two million residents of the sprawling 2nd District -- which stretches from Venice to Koreatown to South Los Angeles to the City of Carson -- have been subjected to increasingly vitriolic charges and countercharges. And that’s not counting the additional millions of dollars spent on this race by so-called independent expenditure committees.

This is not the first time that Los Angeles voters have had to endure nasty, negative and expensive runoff elections. Previously we saw it in the mayoral races in 2001 and 2005, in some city council districts, as well as a community college district runoff in 2007. In each race, voters were hammered with attack ads telling us what’s wrong with the future winners -- undermining our faith in our leaders.

Adding insult to injury, LA taxpayers shell out millions of dollars to pay for the administering of these runoff elections. The May 2007 runoff cost $5 million for an election where only 6 percent of voters participated, a 40 percent dropoff from the March primary. Some precincts had no voters -- yet taxpayers paid $40 per voter for this wasteful election.

Fortunately, there is a better way to elect our local leaders – it is called instant runoff voting (IRV). It works much like our current runoff system, but it elects the majority winner in a single election, thereby savings millions in taxes. It also has the potential to boost voter turnout, and reduce the negative campaigning. Here’s how it works.

With the current method, voters who did not support Parks or Ridley-Thomas in June will pick their second choice this November. With IRV, voters indicate their second choice at the same time as their first choice by ranking up to three candidates, 1-2-3.

If any candidate wins a majority of first rankings, the election is over (just like now). But if no candidate garners a majority of first rankings, the instant runoff begins. If your first choice cannot win, your vote will go immediately to your second choice. In this way, the runoff rankings are used to determine the majority winner. It’s like the current runoff system, but you get it over in one election.

With IRV, voters, candidates and organizations can focus on a single election. According to the Los Angeles City Clerk, IRV will save taxpayers $8 to $9 million each election that a citywide runoff is not held.

Moreover, by reducing the number of elections, IRV will reduce voter fatigue and help boost voter turnout. It also has the potential to reduce negative campaigning. Other places using IRV have found that a winning candidate may need to receive second rankings from the supporters of his or her competitors. As a result, candidates have a greater incentive to find common ground and forge coalitions instead of attacking each other.

IRV has already been adopted by a growing number of cities, including Oakland, Minneapolis, Santa Fe, Cary, North Carolina and San Francisco. In San Francisco, IRV has been used in four elections since 2004. One study found that IRV boosted citywide voter turnout by 168 percent, and by 300 percent in the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Another study found that 87 percent of San Francisco voters understood IRV, a measure that cut across all racial lines.

IRV already has considerable support in Los Angeles, and has been endorsed by a broad coalition that includes the League of Women Voters, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO), voting-rights groups, some neighborhood councils, and noteworthy leaders like former Mayor Richard Riordan, labor leader Dolores Huerta and California State Controller John Chiang.

Voters must approve a charter amendment to adopt IRV for local runoff elections. If the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Villaraigosa act to put IRV on the November ballot, voters will finally have the chance to get rid of wasteful, low turnout runoffs for all Los Angeles city, school board, and community college elections. But time is running short. For this to happen, the City Council's Rules Committee (chaired by Council President Eric Garcetti) must pass an IRV bill by this Wednesday (June 25) -- and the full Council must approve it by July 2.

Like Bill Murray’s character in “Groundhog Day”, voters desperately need relief from having to sit through endless reruns of the same election. It’s time to kickstart our democracy – end voter fatigue, save millions of taxpayer dollars, reduce mudslinging campaigns -- by adopting IRV.

Gautam Dutta, Esq. is Deputy Director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation (IRVinLA.org). He may be reached at dutta@newamerica.net.

Posted on June 23, 2008

Comments

IRV makes sense. No wonder there is such a broad coalition of support. This June election is a perfect example of how IRV would have avoided a second election. Not only do runoff elections waste money but even less voters come to the polls. Also what is the real value of having a second election? No one is discussing the issues but throwing dirt back and forth. Its time for one majority winner in one election and for every election--lets trim down waste!

Posted by: LAhomegrown at June 23, 2008 12:13 PM

Cary North Carolina did not adopt IRV but did participate in an experiment/pilot with IRV in Oct 2007. The pilot program expired.

North Carolina is a state that still can't count votes correctly. On May 6, 2008: double counted - 15,000 in Wake Co and 2,000 in Mecklenburg. Omitted - 4,000 omitted in Onslow County.

If IRV could be done "right", then it might be ok.
The problem is that in NC, the tendency is to ignore election transparency. It was complexity of elections that led North Carolina to have over 7,000 paperless voting machines in our state until 2005 when we passed a new law.

Here are the conditions where it could work in North Carolina:

1. Use only federally tested and certified software. None is available today. Only enact reforms that meet or exceed all requirements of existing election transparency laws.

2. Have computer scientists and statisticians perform volume testing of the new voting software with every possible combination of balloting.
Test the algorithm within an inch of its "life".
This is important, because San Francisco used software for about 3 years and then the SOS revealed that the algorithm was flawed. The algorithm is the set of instructions that tells the software which votes are allocated where and how. Pierce County Washington just tested new IRV software for its Sequoia machines and found some problems. This software has not been federally tested yet and even then I believe that independent computer scientists should test it.

3. Use real paper ballots with an optical scanner, do not use DRE/touchscreens. Hendersonville NC used touchscreens in their Nov 07 IRV experiment and it was very confusing to voters. They voted one screen, then paged over to the next, and there were the same candidates the voter already voted for on the other screen.

4. Update the audit requirements so that IRV contests can be properly audited. Since counting IRV's different rounds depends on each previous round being correct, auditing is more complex and laborious.

5. Update recount laws to ensure that candidates can get a valid recount even when there may be several different "rounds" to be checked.

6. Mandate that all raw vote data be reported. Further, make sure that the state mandates that election night poll tapes/results be posted visibly outside the polling place after the polls close. Make this information available to each political party and other advocates.

6. Provide real voter education that can reach ALL voters - heavy television and radio advertising as well as public events around the state to reach those who do not subscribe to newspapers. Make sure that you reach the poorest of poor, and that you reach even the most isolated voters. Make the voter education simple and appealing.

7. Make sure the electorate is engaged in knowing enough about each contest to rank 3 different choices. This is a big job in some elections where there are dozens of contests, but it must be done. Currently voters have trouble with our regular ballot. Many have trouble choosing between two, don't know enough about the candidates to rank them, much less vote for one.

7. Be realistic in addressing the cost issue. IRV creates new demands on an already taxed system. Ballot printing costs will go up, as well costs to test machines. Voter education is critical for IRV and is not cheap if you try to reach all voters. Please do not sell IRV as a cost saver - in some states they won't know better and will be in for a shock when they have to start spending more money.

We already need more voter education, more debate, more engagement of the public, more money to administer elections - and we need better election transparency. We still have major problems counting votes the regular way. There are simpler methods that could give third parties more power without straining the integrity of our elections and these should be explored. Election transparency must be part of any new "reforms" or we just create an impossible muddle.

Posted by: Joyce McCloy at June 30, 2008 07:46 PM

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